The Walker
by Ghetto Outlaw
Summary: In the new world, a small group of survivors' last, best hope is dead. Chapter 14 FINALLY added!
1. The New World

It was impossible to know with certainty how and where it had all started. The first official reports came out May 8th, 1993. Initially, the incidents seemed to be isolated to Pennsylvania.

However, they quickly began to spread and by August all 48 contiguous states had reports of attacks. No one wanted to believe what appeared to be happening but, in the end, the reality was exactly what it seemed to be. The dead were getting up and attacking the living.

With each attack, the numbers of the dead increased. All it took was a bite or a scratch. Eventually, infection would set in and the pitiable victim would invariably join the ranks of their attacker.

By December, most of the United States was without power, transportation, emergency services, law enforcement, or communication. Within a year of the first attacks, most of the world was dead. Eventually, the days before May 1993 came to be known as the old world.

There were a lot of names for the living dead. Some people called them 'zombies', others 'stenches', a few called them 'scabs'. Mostly, they were called 'walkers'. Regardless of what they were called, they far outnumbered the living and had become the masters of the planet. The few survivors had little more to do than the dead, scratch out an existence and wait.

This was the new world.


	2. At the Gate

Al Parker had retired from the Air Force as a Security Forces Senior Master Sergeant after 24 years of service. His military and law enforcement experience along with a current top secret security clearance meant he had no problem getting a job with the company the base hired to augment the gate guards. He had been on the job just under two years when the dead had begun to rise.

Al had been following the news. At first, it seemed like nothing more than riots in Williamsport, PA even though nobody could figure out what had instigated such violent behavior in an increasingly large group of people. The diversity among the attackers was even more perplexing. Authorities couldn't determine a commonality of age, race, gender, religion, or social status. By all appearances, random people were attacking others indiscriminately, biting and clawing their victims like one would expect from a wild animal.

Strangest of all was what happened afterward. Most victims became severely ill and died within a day or two. Others died immediately from wounds that caused massive blood loss. But they didn't stay dead, not in the conventional sense.

They all got up and began to act just like those who had brought them to their unfortunate state. The cycle of victim turning aggressor repeated itself over and over, exponentially increasing the number of the dead carrying out murderous acts and causing the carnage to spread with increasing rapidity. Soon, cities outside Pennsylvania were experiencing the same thing.

Whatever contagion was precipitating these events didn't take long to reach Nebraska. Omaha had its first confirmed attack on May 28th, 1993. In the ensuing days, many more followed. Al's first encounter with the dead was on June 2nd.

The chaos spreading through Omaha and Bellevue had caused the wing commander to place Offutt under Force Protection Condition Charlie. All security around the base was on heightened alert. Security forces maintained a constant patrol of the base perimeter. Guards enforced 100 ID checks and vehicle inspections.

Al was working nightshift on the main gate with Senior Airman Wood and Staff Sergeant Grey. They had been on-duty since 1800 and the past 3 hours had been fairly quiet with the exception of sirens in the distance and the occasional sound of a gunshot coming from the direction of Omaha. The Omaha riots had been all over the news and the three had heard the stories. Though they weren't sure exactly what was going on, they definitely didn't believe the dead were coming back to life for good or for ill.

It was just after 2100 when the relative quiet of their evening was shattered. At first, SrA Wood thought the woman he saw down the street was just out for a run. However, the young lady was running toward the gate and it soon became clear she was running as fast as she could.

"Help me! Oh god! Please help me!!" she screamed.

"Wood, stay here!" SSgt Grey barked and took off running toward the panic stricken woman.

"Ma'am! Ma'am! Over here! Come here to me!" Grey yelled.

Within seconds the gap between them was closed. She grabbed at him wildly. "He's after me. Please help me. Don't let him get me!"

"Calm down. Who's after you?"

As if in answer to his question, a savage growl split the darkness. About two hundred yards away was a man, running at full speed in their direction. On seeing him, the woman screamed and bolted once more for the gate.

"Halt!" Grey shouted. "Stop right where you are!" Not only were his orders to no effect, the sight of Grey made the man run even harder. Grey drew his 9mm and held it out in front him. "Stop right where you are or you will be fired upon!" With only twenty feet now between them, Grey fired a round into the man's chest.

The stranger didn't even flinch. He barreled right into Grey and both went down to the ground. By this time, Al had reached them. While Grey struggled to push his assailant off, Al repeatedly struck the frenzied man on the back with his nightstick. With each blow, Al's frustration increased. Finally, he struck him on the back of the head with all the force he could muster. Instantly, the man slumped over, motionless. Grey scrambled out from underneath him.

Cautiously, Al reached down and rolled him over. The man looked to be in his twenties. A large piece of flesh was missing from the side of his neck. His skin was pale blue and copious amounts of dried blood stained the front of his shirt and pants. It was obvious that he had been bleeding profusely long before Grey had shot him.

Al and Grey exchanged glances. They didn't speak but both thought the same thing. There was no possible way this man could have been alive with the amount of blood he had lost, much less have been moving so quickly and with such grim determination. Yet there was no denying what had just happened. In that moment they realized that the stories were true. What they didn't realize was how many more dead would be coming to the gate.


	3. At the Fence

Offutt was designated as a rescue station on June 7th. This was little more than a formality since hundreds of people had already been flocking to the base. Though it lasted longer than any other in the area, it was doomed to fail. The epidemic had already become nation-wide in scope and on June 14th national command authorities ordered the withdrawal of all forces stationed there in an attempt to focus military personnel on containment of larger cities with more concentrated populations. Most dependents left to be with family elsewhere. All that remained to defend the base was a handful of contracted security guards and determined civilians. Al and a few other brave souls resolved to make a stand.

The fencing around the base had proven to be an effective barrier. The base was large and only a few people needed to maintain a patrol of the perimeter to ensure that the numbers of dead congregating in any one place was not so great as to place undue strain on the fence.

The greatest threat was on the inside. Infected people who had managed to get onto Offutt in search of help brought in the contagion and it spread quickly. Over the course of a week over 300 people had to be put down. By the time every infected person had been eliminated, fewer than one hundred remained.

The end finally came on June 20th. Several rows of razor wire had been spread out in front of each of the base's entry points to prevent anyone living or dead from getting in. Only the main gate had been left accessible. It was equipped with two steel gates that were designed to be able to stop a vehicle trying to gain entry by force. It could be opened easily enough from the inside to allow survivors entry. However, this was not an issue as no one had come seeking sanctuary for days.

Those guarding the gate stayed low in the guard house, out of sight to avoid exciting the walkers clustered at the entrance. They came out only to be relieved or to shoot any walkers that were particularly agitated and whipping the others into frenzy. When the military left, they were supposed to take everything in the armory but the wing commander ordered a quantity of weapons and ammunition be left behind for those who were remaining. Still, their supply was limited and had to be used sparingly.

Al had taken to sleeping in his Explorer. There was plenty of space in the dormitories but Al was more comfortable in his vehicle. He liked the feeling of being able to take off immediately if circumstances called for it. He looked at his dashboard clock. It was almost 0600. He would have to take his turn on the gate soon.

He took off driving toward the gate. The sight that greeted him when he pulled up had become a familiar one; men and women, young and old pressing against the bars. Some were very badly mutilated while others simply looked pale. Most of them were somewhere in between. The majority of them were pressing hard against the bars, reaching through as far as they could, desperate to get at the people they knew were on the other side. Al had grown used to them.

The only thing that really bothered him was those few who just stood there. Some had blank expressions. Some looked confused. Worse still, some looked sad, like they no longer knew who they were, where they should go or what they should do. Al sometimes wondered if they were as dangerous as the others of if they were just moving around with their own kind because there was nothing else left for them.

Al stepped into the guard house. "You okay Dale?" he asked the man sitting low in the chair. Dale White was a civilian who had worked for Civil Engineering performing general building maintenance. He had been on the job since 1987 and never once imagined he would be guarding the gate he drove through every day from anyone or anything. Yet, here he was.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Nothing's changed since yesterday. I did shoot four that were really wild. I mean they were totally maniacal. The others were getting excited. It's calmed down since…well…as calm as it gets I guess"

"Good. I'll take over. You get some sleep."

Dale smiled. "Sleep? I thought that was a myth," he joked. He picked up his bag and started to leave. Suddenly, he stopped short of the door and stood motionless.

"What is it?" Al asked. There was no reply. "Dale, what…"

"Shush." Dale brought his finger to his lips. He closed his eyes. "Do you hear that?"

"I don't hear anything."

"Listen," Dale hissed and turned his head toward the street leading up to the gate.

Al listened intently. At first he couldn't hear anything other than the walkers moaning and pounding on the gates but then, off in the distance, he heard what sounded like a car horn and it was getting closer.

"Al, that sounds like a car. That means survivors!"

Dale was exultant but Al was far less optimistic. "How are we going to get them inside? There are at least 500 walkers out there. We don't have the ammunition or time to kill them all."

At that moment, an SUV topped the hill. It was swerving wildly across all four lanes and moving fast. After several seconds, Al could foresee what was about to happen. "Oh my god" he whispered.

"What? What is it?"

"They're not slowing down. They aren't going to stop."

About one hundred feet from the gate, the SUV swerved off the street, over the curb and went rolling on its side. Its momentum sent it right through the fence, leaving behind a large hole. After four complete rolls, the vehicle came to a stop right-side-up. It wasn't hard to guess what had caused the driver to lose control. There was blood allover the inside of the windows. All that Al and Dale could see of the interior was two sets of hands aimlessly groping the glass. Whoever it had been, they had crashed because they were dead.

Within seconds, every walker in sight began making their way to the breach provided by one of their own. "We gotta get out of here now! My car, quick!" Al yelled. The two sped off in the direction of the dormitories.

"What are we gonna do?" Dale asked.

"We have to warn everybody. Most of those walkers aren't very fast. It'll be awhile before they make their way over to the dorms and they probably won't all make it at once. There's enough time for everyone to get away."

"Get away? To where? To what?"

"I don't know! I just don't know!" Al screamed. "What I do know is that hundreds of crazy dead cannibals are pouring into this place right now with more on the way, more than we have bullets. That fence was the only thing we really had going for us and now it's gone. This place is a wash! That is what I know!"

"So what's the deal? Is this going to be an everyone for themselves type situation?"

"Look, we're gonna tell everyone what's happened. There are enough cars here for everyone. We'll stay around as long as we can to help people load up. Beyond that Dale, I'm open to ideas."

Dale was getting angrier by the second. He knew for a fact that there were those among them who couldn't possibly defend themselves. Everyone going their own way was sending some of them to their death for certain. Dale's mind was racing. There had to be a way to at least keep most of them together.

Al pulled into the central dorm parking lot. The two jumped out and ran toward the building housing everyone. They had almost reached the door when Dale grabbed Al's arm. "Hey Al, you said you're open to ideas? I've got one."


	4. Karen

Dale pointed across the street, toward the Transportation Squadron's main building. Adjacent to the building was a fenced in parking lot, the storage area for the squadron's inventory. Among the plethora of vehicles were a number of buses.

"We can use those to get everyone out at the same time. We can all stay together," Dale said in a pleading manner.

Al thought long and hard. He had spent years making quick life and death decisions but nothing he had ever seen or done had prepared him for a situation like this. He knew Dale had a point about keeping the group together. They were already horribly outnumbered and every person improved the group's chances of survival. Still, he worried about the inherent dangers of moving a sizeable group of people.

"Al…Al!" Dale yelled as he shook his friend.

"Alright, I'll get the wheels you get the people. I see some shuttle buses that should do the trick. Tell everybody to only grab what they can eat, wear, or shoot with."

The two sprinted in different directions. Al quickly made his way across the street, constantly looking around. Under his breath he muttered a quick prayer of thanks that no walkers were in sight yet.

He didn't even bother with the door, which he knew would be locked. Instead, he grabbed his nightstick from his side and rammed it through the large plate glass window in front of the building.

Once inside, he made for the front desk. On the wall over the dispatcher's desk were hanging dozens of keys. Al scanned the tags until he found what he was seeking. He grabbed the four sets of keys labeled "Shuttle Bus", along with the one labeled "Main Gate" and made for the parking area.

Of all the survivors who had retreated to Offutt in search of sanctuary, a mere 87 remained. They had all taken to sleeping on the top floor of one dorm building. In the beginning, such close proximity had proven disastrous since it had allowed those who were infected to spread the contagion quickly and easily. However, once the infection had been contained and eliminated, the general feeling was that there was safety in numbers and the further they could get from the ground, the better.

Dale topped the stairs screaming, "Everybody! Heads in the hallway! Heads in the hallway!" He repeatedly looked down the hallway to his left then the one to his right. Once satisfied he had everyone's attention he yelled, "The fence is down! It's been breached. There are thousands of walkers pouring into the base right now."

The reaction was pandemonium. Some people started screaming, some cried, some retreated into their rooms, and others ran up to Dale, hurling questions. What happened? How could the fence come down? Where are they? What are we going to do? Dale closed his eyes and tried in vain to separate all the voices.

"Everybody shut up!!" Surprisingly, they actually fell silent. "There's no time for questions. The fence is down, walkers are coming in, and we can't stay here. Al's across the street getting transportation for everybody right now. Grab only what you can eat or wear or use as a weapon."

Al picked one of the keys in his possession at random and looked until he found a bus with a license plate number matching the one on the attached tag. "This should easily hold at least fifty people", he thought after a quick survey of the interior. He sat in the driver's seat and started the engine. To his astonishment, the gas tank was full.

He stopped the bus as he neared the padlocked gate and alighted from his seat. As he slowly inserted the key, he paused long enough to whisper, "Please be the right one." The key turned easily, the lock released and the chain that secured the gate slid to the ground. Despite the current circumstances, he allowed himself a smile. "The hits just keep on coming."

Across the street he could see a number of cars speeding away from the dorm. He drove as quickly as he dared and came finally to a stop in front of the dorm where Dale was waiting. "What the hell is going on? Where are they going?", al yelled as the buses doors opened.

"There were some people who wouldn't wait. I tried to talk to them but they grabbed their stuff and took off."

Al took in the scene before him. Crowded together was all that remained of the people who had for the past three weeks called this base home. As instructed, they had gathered what little they had left in this world. For most of them, that was each other. They were armed and they were scared but they were here. They had stayed when others left and now they were all looking expectantly at Al and Dale.

"How many bailed on us?" Al asked.

"I didn't count but I'd guess about thirty."

"Well, look on the bright side. At least now we know who we can't count on." Al turned from Dale to the group, "Is everyone here? Does anyone know for sure if we're waiting on anyone?" The collective answer was in the negative but Al wasn't prepared to take chances.

"Dale, get everyone on the bus and do a head count. It should be able to hold everyone. I'm going to run upstairs and check to make sure we're not leaving anyone behind. We're leaving in three minutes."

With that, Al bolted for the door and up the stairs. He ran up and down the halls, pounding on doors and yelling for anyone still there to come out. After several seconds with no response he turned to leave but stopped when he heard the faint sound of someone crying. He listened intently and followed the sound to a door that was slightly ajar. Slowly, he pushed it open and stepped inside.

"Hello? Is anyone here?" he called out. There was no reply. He continued to follow the sound. Next to the bed on the far side of the room, a young woman sat of the floor. She looked to be in her late teens to early twenties. She held her head in her hands and her body jerked violently as she sobbed.

"Hey, we have to go! We gotta get out of here," Al pleaded.

"Go…away!" was her only answer.

Al knelt down in front of her. "Do you know what's happening right now?" She nodded her head. "Then why are you here?" He kept his voice soft and steady. "Why are you here?" he asked again, this time more forcefully.

She lifted her head but kept her gaze directed away from him. Her eyes were bright red and puffy. She'd been crying very hard. "Nothing…there's nothing left. We can't get away."

She looked into his eyes. "You know why we can't get away? Because there's nothing to get away to! There's no point in trying!"

During his years in security forces Al had been called on to deal with hysterical, distraught people many times but he couldn't recall a situation nearly as time sensitive as this one. There was no time to tread lightly. He grabbed her and forcefully dragged her over to the window.

"Look out there!" he barked. He held the back of her head so she couldn't look away. "Do you see that bus down there? Do you know what's in that bus? Do you?!"

"…No…" she choked out.

"That bus is full of people who haven't given up on themselves or each other. Those are the people you've lived with for the past three weeks. I know you have to know some of them! Look, maybe you lost someone. Everyone down there has lost someone. I don't know your story and I don't have time to hear it right now. If you stay here, you'll die … for nothing. If you come with us, you may well die but you'll have a chance! If even one of those people is your friend then that's all the reason you need to try. Now pull yourself together!"

He turned her from the window and gently held her tear stained face in his hands. "Will you come with me?" he pleaded.

The fear and despair he had seen in her eyes moments before was gradually giving way to a grim resolve. She pressed her lips together hard, struggling to regain her composure. "Yes," she said through clenched teeth.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Karen."

"Karen … we have to go!"


	5. East Lake

The sound of screaming drew Al's attention back to the window. A young girl standing in the line of people boarding the bus was hysterically clutching at a woman he presumed was her mother. Her screaming was soon accompanied by others. Coming down the street toward the dorm was a gaggle of walkers. Apparently, the noise had also gotten their attention. Al watched in horror as the bulk of them quickened their pace, some of them breaking into a sprint and all of them headed this way. He grabbed Karen by the hand and the two ran for the bus.

They raced down the stairs, jumping the last few steps and barreled through the front door. The bus was only fifty feet away but to their right a walker was coming at them fast. Al shoved Karen toward the open door. "Get on!" he yelled as he grabbed his nightstick.

Ever since the night he had killed his first walker, he had taken to carrying a pistol but it still wasn't his weapon of choice. He took a great deal of pride in the close-combat fighting skills he had developed over the past twenty years and the fact that he had managed to go his entire military career without having to shoot anyone. Though one would be hard pressed to consider this thing in front of him a person, Al was determined to stay with what he knew.

"Come on! Right here!" Al spat as he waved defiantly, deliberately goading the creature on. The walker was less than two feet away when the stick connected with the side of its neck, breaking it with a sickening crack.

"Al! Come on!" Dale called out.

By now, the parking lot was full of walkers and they were all converging on the bus. "Everybody hold on!" Al yelled as he climbed into the driver's seat. He resisted the urge to floor the gas. Instead, he maneuvered the vehicle quickly but cautiously, trying to avoid hitting more walkers than he could help. He didn't want to risk any unnecessary damage to their ride.

"How are we going to get off the base?" Dale asked.

"We're going through the hole in the fence."

"Are you serious?"

"Well, I'm sure not getting out this bus to unlock the gate."

Within minutes they were at the fence. Fortunately, the crowd had thinned and Al was able to easily maneuver around the wrecked SUV and the walkers still milling about. Once they were clear of the base, he accelerated enough to leave behind the creatures that were giving chase.

"Where are we going now?" Dale asked.

Everything had happened so fast that he hadn't thought that far ahead. Al glanced about as if hoping an idea would appear before him.

Karen finally broke the uneasy silence. "East Lake," she said.

Al and Dale exchanged confused looks. "What?" they asked in unison.

"We can go to East Lake. Take the next exit up ahead, I'll show you what I'm talking about."

Karen navigated Al onto Highway 370 going west toward Papillion. "Keep driving through Papillion until you get to South 168th Street and then turn right."

There were surprisingly few walkers on or near the roads. Al suspected that most of them were concentrated in nearby Omaha. The majority of the city's population of just over 700,000 resided within five miles of the city center and from what Al had seen he knew these creatures would go where the people are. He couldn't help wondering how many people in the city were still alive and how long would they stay that way. "No," he thought, "don't go there. You have to worry about the people you have with you right now."

After about twenty minutes of driving, Al turned onto South 168th Street. "Follow the street until it dead ends," Karen directed. Al couldn't help laughing at the way that sounded. At the same time, he hoped this wouldn't be another kind of dead end.

Dale leaned close and whispered in Al's ear, "I don't know where we're going but I haven't seen a walker for the last ten miles. This looks promising." Al remained silent but nodded his assent.

After a few more miles, the bus crested a hill and there came into view, through the trees, what looked like a concrete wall that stretched in both directions for as far as Al could see. Just as Karen had said, the street ran right up to the wall and ended at a very formidable looking iron gate. The gate was bolted to the wall on both sides and swung open from the center. On each side of the gate was affixed a bronze plaque that read, "East Lake Estates."

East Lake Estates had been intended to be the premier gated community in the Omaha area. Nestled in the woods roughly twenty miles from downtown Omaha, East Lake boasted fifty luxury homes on three hundred acres of prime real estate that was completely surrounded by a nine-foot wall of concrete and steel. With an average price of $5 million, only the wealthiest could afford a home there.

Construction had been going on for almost three years and much to the delight of investors, finding fifty status obsessed buyers had proven easy. Every home had been sold within eight months of the ground breaking. East Lake had been scheduled to open to residents on July 1st, 1993. However, those were plans that had been made in the old world. None of the buyers would ever see this place and the new would-be occupants had nothing more than what they could carry and each other.

Dale gave utterance to the question that was on everybody's mind, "What is this place?"

"It's a new housing development, well; it's really a gated community. It was supposed to open next month but I guess it's safe to say that isn't going to happen," Karen explained.

"How do you know about this place?" Al asked.

"My father was the project manager for the construction company that built it. I used to come out here to see him all the time."

Al started to ask her what had become of her father but quickly thought better of the idea. "How big is this place?"

"I don't know exactly but it has fifty private residences and one small home for the property manager."

Al looked left and then right. The wall was largely obscured by trees and shrubbery. "How far does this wall go?"

"It goes all the way around the property." Karen smiled.

Al's eyes widened. "All the way around?"

Karen answered with a nod.

"And the gate…" Al continued.

"…is the only way in or out," Karen said, anticipating his next question.

Al breathed deeply. The reality of what was in front of him was beginning to sink in. Here was a veritable fortress. He knew that no amount of walkers could compromise the wall and the number that it would take to pose a realistic threat to the gate was beyond his imagination. This was a place where they could actually be safe. "Alright, how do we get in?"

Karen reached into her pocket and withdrew a key. She held it up in front of her face and stared at it hard with glistening eyes. It was a very unassuming object and yet she looked at it as though it was her most prized possession. "My father gave me this," she paused for a moment and wiped away the tears that were starting to run down her face, "He wasn't supposed to let anyone who wasn't working here have one. Still, here it is."

Al looked out the windshield for several moments then got up and walked to the back of the bus. He peered through the rear window. There were no walkers in sight. "It looks clear. Give me the key and I'll go open the gate." He extended his hand, expecting her to hand it over.

Karen stared at him, first in disbelief and then anger. "The hell you will! When the base was crawling with zombies you told me to pull myself together and now that I have you're tell me sit down and be quiet. No, no, no. I don't think so. My father gave this key to me, not you! I'm the one who's going out there." She pulled the handle to open the doors and stormed off the bus.

Al started after her but Dale grabbed his arm. "Let her go. There's no immediate danger and," Dale lowered his voice to a whisper, "I think we can guess what happened to her father. Just … just give her a minute."

Karen stood at the gate for what seemed like a long time. She stared through the bars across the grounds and thought about how much time she had spent here with her father and the construction workers. Most of them had been working for her father for as long as she could remember. She had spent her whole life around them and had always thought of them as her older brothers. Now, she had no idea where they were, what they were doing, or if they were alive or dead or worse. Her father, however, she knew exactly where he was.

---------------

It was June 2nd, her father's birthday and she had left work early to go to his house to cook his favorite dinner and a cake. It was about a quarter after eight when she heard his car pull into the drive. She had expected him home two hours ago but he had been working late the past few months to get his latest construction project finished on time. She looked out the window and saw him walking toward the front door. Suddenly, from her father's right, a man came running at him and took him to the ground with a full flying body tackle.

Karen ran out of the front door and discovered the two grappling on the ground. "What are you doing?!" she screamed. The man turned on her. His face was twisted into a snarl and he was covered with blood. He moved toward her but her father grabbed the man's legs and pulled them out from under him. He quickly jumped on top of him and began repeatedly punching his attacker in the face. Each time the crazed man tried to lift himself up he was put down by another blow.

Her father lunged to hit him again but his fist glanced off the man's blood smeared face and he lost his balance. The momentary respite was all his assailant needed. He grabbed Karen's father by the collar, pulled him down and bit hard into neck, just below his ear.

Karen struggled to pull her father free and finally managed to wrestle him away. She grabbed him by the arm and helped him run to the house. The man on the ground quickly regained his footing, seemingly unfazed by the beating he had just taken. The two barely managed to inside door before he was upon them again. She slammed the door hard and turned the deadbolt. She hardly noticed the continual pounding on the door. All her attention was on her father.

He was bleeding, badly. He clutched at his neck, trying to stop the blood that was spurting from his body under the force of his panic stricken heart. She pressed her hands hard on the wound. "Daddy! Calm down! You're gonna be okay! It's all going to be okay!" The rapidly spreading pool of blood on the floor made her hope rather than believe this was true.

"I'm going to call for help. I'll be right back, I promise." She ran into the kitchen to retrieve the phone and then back to his side. She dialed 911 but instead of an operator she was greeted with the message, "All circuits are busy. Please hang up and try your call again later." She tried again with the same result.

Her father was more tranquil now and his head lolled to one side. The flow of blood had dwindled to a barely perceptible trickle. His eyes fluttered as though he was trying to desperately to keep them open. His breathing slowed and after a few moments, sputtered to a halt.

"Oh god. Oh god! No, no, no, no, NO!" She dialed 911 again but to no avail. "DADDY!!!"

In her panic she had not noticed that the pounding on the door had ceased. From the living room, came the sound of glass shattering. She looked up and saw the man who had killed her father clambering into the house through the window. She made for the door but before fleeing she took one last look at her father. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

She sprinted down the sidewalk. She didn't know where she was going; only that she had to get away from here. She looked around but could see no one. "Help me!" she screamed. The sidewalk ended at Capehart Street. A glimpse over her shoulder revealed that the man was gaining on her. She took off to her left, in the direction of Offutt Air Force Base. It was just over a mile away but she knew she would be safe if she could get there. He pursuer was so close behind that she didn't dare stop or even slow down until she could see help.

The distance to the base seemed as though it was getting longer the closer she got. She crossed the Fort Crook Road overpass and could finally see the main gate. Even though she felt like her lungs were about to explode, the sight of help gave her renewed strength. As she neared the gate she screamed out, "Help me! Oh god! Please help me!"

One of the three men at the gate ran out to her. "Ma'am! Ma'am! Over here! Come here to me!"

When she reached him, she pawed at his chest and cried, "He's after me. Please help me. Don't let him get me!"

"Calm down. Who's after you?"

At that moment, both heard a loud growling noise that was getting closer. When the man came into view, she screamed and ran for the gate. Another man who had been standing at the gate went running past her in the opposite direction. Just as she reached the gate, she heard a gunshot.

Karen turned and saw one of the guards struggling on the ground with the man who had chased her. The other guard was beating the frenzied man with a large stick. Finally, the stick wielding man landed a blow to the head that brought the altercation to a halt. Her father's killer slumped to the ground and was motionless.

---------------

Just as she had done so many times before, Karen inserted the key into the lock. She turned it until a bolt above the lock released. She turned it once more and a second bolt below the lock released. The gate swung open and she waved the bus through.

Al pulled in slowly and once he was clear, she closed the gate and inserted the key into a similar mechanism on the other side and returned the bolts to their locked position with a couple of turns.

Al stood and addressed the people on the bus. "Everybody stay here for right now. Dale and I will be right back."

The two stepped outside and were joined by Karen. "The gate's locked," she told them.

"Are you sure that gate is the only way in or out?" Dale asked.

"Yes, I'm sure." Karen looked out across the grounds. The grass showed a few weeks of unchecked growth but otherwise the landscaping and the houses looked immaculate. "I don't know when someone was here last."

Al looked from Dale to Karen. "This place is too big to check on foot. Let's drive around for awhile and see if we can get anything's attention. If it looks good, we can cut everybody loose. Dale, I almost forgot to ask you, how many people do we have left?"

"Counting the three of us, there are forty-seven."

"Well, I guess that'll have to do won't it?" Al replied. "Okay, let's take a look around."

Al drove the bus around for over an hour. Everyone kept a sharp watch for anything that looked unusual or dangerous. Al finally brought the bus to a stop. He turned to Dale and Karen. "It looks good but we need to search every single house before I'm satisfied." He looked at his watch. "It's 1030. We should have enough time to check most of the houses before dark."

Dale nodded. "Okay. Karen?"

"Yeah, let's go."

"Listen up everybody," Al started. "It looks safe out there but we still need to check every house just to be sure there are no walkers inside this place. I'm going to need some volunteers to help with the search."

A barrage of questions erupted from the group. How long are we going to be here? When can we go home? What are we going to do about food? Are we going to be safe here? Is the military coming back? What about my family? When is this going to be over?

"Everyone please calm down! Please be quiet!" Al said and pressed a finger to his lips, motioning for silence. Gradually, the bedlam subsided and he was able to speak. "I don't know how long we're going to be here. I don't know exactly what we're going to do. I don't know when all this is going to end or if it ever will but we're safe right now."

"That's what we were told about Offutt," said a man in the group.

Al hung his head in exasperation. After a moment, he regained his composure and spoke. "I know what you were told and I'm sorry. I … I can't make any promises. I only know this place looks like our best chance. All we can do right now is focus on staying alive." He looked across the group, taking in the doubt and fear in all their faces. He felt it too. "Now, who's going to help me search this place?"

Almost everyone joined in to help. Only a handful stayed behind to watch after the children in the group. By eight o'clock that evening they had completed a systematic search of every building on the property. To their astonishment, all the houses had already been completely furnished in anticipation of their owners' arrival. To their relief, there was no danger to be found.

Al called everyone together. "Good job everyone. There's plenty of room so everybody pick a house and get a good nights sleep. We'll figure out what else to do tomorrow."

The crowd quickly dispersed. Some of them were actually smiling and laughing. Al smiled also. There was no doubt in his mind that any one of these houses was far, far beyond anything any of them could have ever hoped to afford. "Strange what the end of the world can do," he thought.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?"

Al turned to see Karen. "I was thinking about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah."

"What about me?"

He turned from Karen and watch a number of people running about excitedly from one house to another. The fear he had seen etched into their faces earlier that day had been replaced with a measure of peace, maybe even happiness. He turned back to Karen. "You may have saved all their lives today."

"Me? No way. You and Dale are the ones who got us away from the base. You guys are the reason we're still alive."

"Dale and I got everybody away from the base but you're the one who got us here. Look at them. This is the first time in weeks I've seen any real hope in anyone's eyes. Thank you."

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked.

"Dale and I are going to sleep on the bus, at least for tonight. We're going to take turns watching the gate. After all, we're used to it. What are you sleeping?"

"I'm going to sleep in the property manager's house. It's the smallest and my father worked out of there while all this was being built." She started toward the house then turned back to Al. "What are we going to do tomorrow?"

"I have no idea. I'm making this up as I go along." He leaned in close to her. "Between you and me, I think this place may have to be home for awhile."


	6. Vicki

The first few days at East Lake were relatively easy for everyone. Electricity and water were still working, though everybody knew that luxury couldn't last for long. East Lake was far enough away from the city that few walkers stumbled upon it and those that did were dealt with easily enough from the safety of the other side of the gate or the top of the wall. However, circumstances didn't take long to deteriorate.

The only food they had with them was what they brought from Offutt during their impromptu escape and that ran out after only three days. It wasn't what either had intended or planned but Al and Dale had become the de facto leaders of the group and everyone turned to them to come up with a solution.

Al's stomach sank at the thought but he knew there was no way other than going into Papillion to see what was there to be had. To his relief, when he announced his intention, several men volunteered to go along. He finally settled on four men besides Dale and himself. The plan was simple. They would ride into town, head straight for ValueKo, the local discount warehouse, and hope for the best.

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The bus rolled into the parking lot. Several cars littered the area but no one living or dead was in sight. Dale pointed to the front of the store. "Look. The glass doors are broken out. Someone's already been here."

"I was afraid of that. Still, we've come this far. Let's hope there's something left," Al said. He parked the bus near the front doors and then turned to the group, "Listen up, is everybody armed and loaded?" All nodded. "When we get in there, grab a cart, go straight for the grocery section. We want to get peanut butter, dried fruit, canned meat, rice, and beans. We don't know what's in there so move quickly and quietly."

The six of them entered the store. There didn't appear to be any power on. The sun coming in through the skylights provided the only illumination. Al motioned everyone to stop. He listened intently, trying to hear anything that might be a threat. After about a minute he pointed to the carts and then in the direction of the grocery section.

Fortunately, whoever got to the store first appeared more interested in mindless robbery than in taking anything practical because the food section didn't look like it had been touched. So the group moved their carts along the aisles, grabbing everything they could.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash in the lawn and garden department. As if by instinct, everyone in the group converged on the area, weapons drawn. Together, they crept forward, keeping their weapons at head level. Having been in similar situations before, Al took the lead.

As they drew closer to where pet supplies ended and lawn and garden began, they could hear scraping sounds in a far aisle. Al motioned for the others to keep back while he moved ahead. Slowly, he closed in on the source of the sound. Finally, he peered around the corner into the aisle.

At the far end of the aisle was a metal display rack tipped over on its side. Packages of various seed were scattered all over the floor. Next to the rack, on hands and knees, was a woman.

Her right arm had a blood soaked piece of cloth tied around it just below the elbow that looked as though it had been applied in haste. Long, blonde hair hid her face from view. Al assumed she worked there because she was wearing an employee's vest. She grabbed the packs of seed and clumsily tried to stuff them back into the slots from which they had fallen.

Al tightened his grip on his nightstick and stepped into the aisle. "Hey … are you okay?" he said just above a whisper.

Slowly, she turned her head toward him. She looked like she was in her twenties. The skin of her face was pale and her lips were a deep blue color. Her left ear was missing along with a large portion of surrounding skin. Her dark sunken eyes stared at him. It was obvious she had been dead for several days. He raised his weapon, ready for an attack but she didn't move. Her unblinking eyes remained fixed on him but she showed no signs of hostile intent. After what seemed like a long time, she went back to what she had been doing.

Dale could no longer see Al and the suspense was gnawing away at him. Throwing caution aside, he called out, "Al, is everything okay?"

"I'm fine! Just stay right there for a minute!"

Al lowered his weapon and gently moved closer until he was right next to her. He knelt down and watched as she busied herself trying to set the display to right. This young lady reminded him of some of the things outside the gate at Offutt. Not every walker he had seen was aggressive. Some just stood in place or wandered around aimlessly. He never expected he would be this close to one.

Again, she raised her head to look at him. She scooped up a handful of seed packets and held them out to him.

"Oh my god," he mumbled under his breath. He looked from the seeds to her face and back again. Her expression was impassive as if what she was doing was the most natural thing in the world. Slowly, he reached out and took them from her cold hand. Immediately, she resumed her task.

In that moment, Al couldn't help feeling pity for this creature. He knew it was probably the most foolish, reckless thing her had ever done but he reached out to touch her face. With surprising speed she grabbed his hand. Still, she made no attempt to bite him. She took his hand in hers and stroked his warm skin with the tips of her fingers.

Her gaze shifted repeatedly from his hand to his face. She released him and looked down at her own hands. Her eyes widened as if she were seeing them for the first time. She placed one of her hand's on Al's face and the other on her own.

Her discolored lips began to quiver. A few latent tears ran from her eyes. Her mouth gaped open and she closed her eyes tightly. She made no sound. In perfect silence, she cried. Al couldn't even begin to imagine what to do. She held out her arms and inched toward him like a broken-hearted child looking for some comfort.

From behind him, Al heard a gasp. He turned just in time to see Dale with his pistol raised.

Dale fired a single shot into her forehead. Her head snapped back and forward again. For a moment, she looked at Al then her eyes closed and she slumped to the floor.

Al rushed at Dale and grabbed him by the collar. "What the hell are you doing?!"

"She was going for you, Al. What hell do you mean what am I doing?"

Al turned back to the lifeless body. "I didn't … she wasn't … I thought … maybe … damn it, Dale!"

Dale grabbed Al by the arm. "Come on, we have to get the bus loaded."

Al wrenched his arm from Dale's grasp. "Yeah, you go do that, Dale! YOU go get the bus loaded!" He poked Dale in the chest with his stick. "Cause you know what, I'm sick of it being Al all the time! I don't know how I became the leader here so why don't you step up and be number one for awhile?! You obviously don't have any problem making life and death decisions so YOU take charge! I'll catch up in a minute." Al stormed off back down the aisle.

"Al … I just … we need to," Dale stammered.

"I said I'll catch up!!"

The dumbfounded group returned to the job of getting all the food on the bus they could, leaving Al behind. He knelt over the girl and began to sob uncontrollably. Death was nothing new to him. He had seen more than his share in Iraq and Afghanistan. It made no sense to him that this should have such an impact on him save the fact that he had just watched a dead person demonstrate more human feeling than he could remember ever seeing from anyone.

The name tag on her vest read "VICKI". He stroked her face with the back of his fingers. "I'm sorry, Vicki. I'm so sorry," he whispered as he removed the tag and slipped it into his pocket.

He started down the aisle to rejoin the others. There was a crunching under his foot. He looked down and saw the hundreds of seed packets he'd forgotten were strewn about. Suddenly, an idea struck him. He ran to the lawn and garden checkout counter, grabbed several plastic bags and began gathering all the packets. He checked every one, casting aside flowers and taking only those that would produce fruits or vegetables. Once he was satisfied he had all the seeds in the store, he carried them outside to the bus which had already been packed to its capacity by the others.

Dale was sitting in the driver's seat. "I was just about to leave you behind."

"I wouldn't have blamed you. Look, Dale, about what happened, I'm … I'm sorry. I got caught up in the heat of the moment and I …"

Dale raised his hand. "I'm sorry too, Al. I should have known that you knew what you were doing. I was being heavy handed and … scared."

"Yeah, me too," Al said.

After a long silence, one of the guys in the back of the bus volunteered, "If you guys are going to kiss and make up, can it wait until we get back to East Lake?"

Al smiled at Dale. "You gonna drive?"

"Well, I am in charge." Both laughed. "What's in the bags?" Dale asked, pointing at what Al was holding.

"Something Vicki gave me."


	7. The First Year

**Author's Note:** I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read and review my story. I'm especially grateful for the encouragement I've received from The Reader's Muse. As a result of some of the feedback I've received, I've revised this chapter to add some more depth to the characters of Jeff and Barbara Nicholson and the tragedy their deaths represent. I hope everyone enjoys the changes I've made. Please let me know what you think!

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Most of the group believed the disaster that had befallen the world would pass away in time, that the dead would eventually rot away. But they didn't. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months with no sign of relent. Though seldom in large numbers, walkers came to East Lake and kept coming, proof positive that they were still out there and not simply going away.

Still, it wasn't the dead that were the most disturbing. It was the lack of the living. During their early days at East Lake, Al, Dale, and Karen led a number of supply runs on Papillion and encountered plenty of walkers but never a single survivor.

With a population of just over 10,000, Papillion was not a small town. No one gave them utterance but in their minds they all labored over the same questions. Where did everyone go? Could they all have been infected? Were they all dead? Was there anyone left anywhere else in the world? Was East Lake all that remained of humanity?

As for nearby Omaha, its condition wasn't hard to imagine. A tightly packed population of just fewer than one million and murderous living dead carrying the most virulent disease in human history were the perfect ingredients for a bloodbath. Every time the wind came in from Omaha's direction it carried with it the unmistakable stench of carrion. The decision was easy. Nobody was going anywhere near Omaha unless it was absolutely necessary.

As a sanctuary, East Lake was almost ideal. Still, life was not easy and the first year was the most difficult. Within a few weeks of their arrival, the electricity stopped working and the running water soon followed.

For some time, the greatest problem was maintaining enough food for everyone. Al had the foresight on their first excursion to collect hundreds of packs of various seeds that could be planted inside and outside the wall to provide a renewable food source. However, it was nearly four months before they could harvest anything.

Venturing outside in search of supplies became progressively more dangerous with each trip as the number of walkers they encountered continually increased while the availability of useable goods simultaneously diminished.

In late September, Al and Dale were on the brink of ordering strict food rationing when nature intervened on their behalf. The crops planted outside the wall attracted deer and rabbits looking for an easy meal. The animals had always been plentiful in Nebraska but with no more hunters to keep their numbers under control, they eventually came in droves and provided much needed sustenance.

Water proved to be an easier commodity to come by. When it rained, water was gathered in every possible container. Most of the houses had pools and Lake Wehrsphan was less than a mile away. The water from both sources could be boiled and strained. It wasn't perfect but it was plentiful and far better than the alternative.

By the summer following their arrival, the group had a relatively comfortable existence. They had food, water, shelter, and a barrier between them and the prowling death that had enveloped the world, a barrier that seemed invulnerable. Death, however, had a longer reach than they realized.

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It was the morning of August 23, 1994. It was early and Dale was awake but still in bed. For as long as he could remember, he had a hard time sleeping and never got more than three to four hours a night. These days it was even harder. Usually, he spent hours looking up at the ceiling, remembering the old world or wondering what his life would have been like right now if the dead had stayed that way.

His silent revelry was interrupted by the sound of pounding on his front door. "I'm coming!" he yelled as he leapt out of bed and quickly dressed. He raced downstairs and flung open the door. There stood Sarah Nicholson.

Sarah was eight years old and lived with her parents, Jeff and Barbara Nicholson, only a few houses down from Dale. She was still in her pajamas and crying hysterically.

"What is it Sarah?" Dale asked as he knelt down and placed his hands on her shoulders.

"Something's … wrong … with … my mom … and dad," she stammered between sobs.

"Okay, slow down. Sarah you're gonna have to calm down."

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and took several deep breaths.

"Alright, Sarah," Dale began, "Tell me what's wrong."

"My mom and dad were yelling and I tried to open their door but it was locked and my mom was screaming for me to get out of the house." She was silent for several moments and then broke into tears again. "I didn't know what to do so I came here!" she wailed and threw her arms around Dale's neck.

"It's okay, it's okay," he said, trying to sound as reassuring as possible. "I'm going to deal with this. We're going to go over to Mr. Parker's and I'll get him to come with me to find out what's wrong."

Dale picked her up and carried her next door to Al's house. He knocked on the door and when Al opened it Dale didn't give him time for questions. "Al, we have a situation. Sarah says something is wrong at her house. I don't know what's happening but she's really freaked out and I told her we'd see what's wrong."

Al was a little taken aback by this abrupt start to his day but quickly collected himself. "Yeah, sure. Let's take her over to Karen's and we'll go see what's up."

Karen, Al, and Dale all lived adjacent to each other in the three houses closest to the gate, a deliberate arrangement. It wasn't ever formally decided, but ever since their days at Offutt, everyone perceived Al and Dale as the leaders of the group. After Karen led them to East Lake, she joined their ranks. Some people even jokingly referred to them as "The Top Three".

They found Karen in the backyard watering a row of tomato plants. She instantly knew that something wasn't right. "Al, what is it?" she asked, pointing to Dale who stood at a distance with Sarah, still doing his best to calm her.

"Something's going on at the Nicholson's," he said in a hushed tone. "It could be something or it could be nothing. Will you keep Sarah here while we check it out?"

"Of course I will," she answered and hastened to take the girl from Dale. "Sarah, honey, why don't you come inside with me while Al and Dale go see your mom and dad?" By now, the girl was much more settled down and went along with Karen quietly.

Al waited until the little girl was out of earshot before asking Dale exactly what she had told him. "She said Jeff and Barb were yelling, their door was locked, and that her mom yelled at her to get out of the house," was Dale's answer.

Al rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Doesn't sound like a run-of-the-mill domestic problem. It doesn't sound like Jeff and Barb at all. I just don't know. Still, I'm going armed. I don't think it'll be necessary but I'll feel better."

In truth, Al was a lot more worried than he was letting on. He had known Jeff since 1989. Jeff had joined the Air Force in 1988 when he and his wife Barbara were both eighteen years old. They had gotten married that year and were expecting a baby. With only a high school education, his employment prospects were slim. Ultimately, he decided the military was the best option for him and his family.

Upon completion basic training and tech school, Jeff was assigned to Offutt as a security forces troop. He worked the law enforcement desk where Al was serving as the section superintendent. Al didn't directly supervise him but took a special interest in him because he was the youngest troop in the office and was trying to be a husband and a father while working a hard job with long hours. Al tried to be as lenient as he could with the schedule so Jeff could spend as much time at home as possible.

After four years, Jeff chose to not re-enlist and Al helped him get a job with the security company where he himself was working. The day after Offutt was declared a rescue station, Jeff took his wife and daughter there in hopes they would be safe and so he could help out. Al had always liked Jeff and knew he could depend on him. That's why he selected Jeff from among the volunteers to go on their first ever supply run to Papillion.

"Do you want to get some other guys to go along with us?" Dale asked.

"No. Let's not make this a bigger deal than we have to."

The sun was now almost over the trees and several people were already out and about, tending to a variety of different chores. When they arrived at the Nicholson's, they couldn't hear any noise from the outside and nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Al's eyes wandered over the front of the house and stopped on one of the upper windows. There were red splatters on several of the panes and one clearly discernable handprint.

"Oh god, no!" Al yelled and bolted through the front door and up the stairs with Dale close behind.

When they topped the stairs, Dale called out, "Jeff! Barb!" In response, the door to the master bedroom at end of the hallway shuddered violently. The door shook several more times as if someone inside the room were trying to break it down. After several seconds, all was silent again.

Silently, they crept down the hall toward the bedroom. Coming from under the door and running along the hardwood floor was a large stream of blood. Al tried turning the knob but, just as Sarah had said, it was locked.

"Now do you want to get some other guys?" Dale whispered.

"No time," Al replied. He took a few steps back and then lunged forward, driving his heel into the door right next to the knob. The frame gave way in a shower of splinters and the door went flying open.

Inside the room there was blood on the floor, the walls, and the bed.. Just a few feet from the door was Jeff, naked and kneeling over Barbara's motionless body. His face was buried in a huge, gaping wound in her shoulder. He snapped his head around to face the two intruders. All the color was gone from his eyes and his pallor was in stark contrast to the blood covering his face.

His face was emotionless but abruptly twisted into a snarl. His lips curled back, exposing his blood-stained teeth. He jumped to his feet and ran toward Al.

This is not at all what Al had been expecting. The grisly scene before him and Jeff's surprising speed caught him off guard. Al swung his stick and caught him across the bridge of the nose. Jeff stumbled backwards, tripped over Barbara and fell to the floor. Still, he was only stunned by the blow but Al wasn't about to give him the opportunity to regain his footing. He jumped over Barbara and repeatedly struck Jeff in the head until he felt the bones give way and Jeff went limp.

Al fell to his knees and breathed heavily. He wiped the sweat and blood from his face. "Damn it," he whispered. His mind raced, trying to comprehend what had just happened.

"Al!" Dale screamed. Al turned and saw Barbara sitting upright. Her face bore the same grim expression as her husband's had moments before. Dale grabbed the pistol he had concealed behind his back, under his shirt. He fired a single round into the back of her head, spraying blood on Al.

Reflexively, Al threw his hands up in front of his face and backpedaled away from the two bodies. He got to his feet and ran to the bathroom to get a towel. In the bathroom there was more blood than in the bedroom. It was smeared on the inside of the tub, the surrounding wall tiles, and along the floor leading to the bedroom.

Taped to the mirror over the basin was a note. It simply read, "I can't keep living like this. I'm sorry." It was signed by Jeff. He snatched the note down and crumpled it in his hand.

Al walked back into the bedroom and inspected Jeff's wrists. His suspicions were confirmed. Both had been slit. "That explains the mess," he mumbled in disgust. He opened his fist and looked at the wad of paper in his hand. "Why didn't you tell me something was wrong?! You could have talked to me! I should have seen this coming!" he yelled at Jeff's lifeless body. "Did you even stop for a second to think about Barbara or Sarah, goddammit?!"

"What? What is it?" Dale asked. Al was silent for a long time. "Al, what is it?"

"Suicide," he muttered.

"What?"

"Jeff killed himself. He cut his wrists in the tub. There's blood all over the bathroom."

Dale shook his head in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"There was a note."

"But he came back. He was one of them. He was one of THEM!! This doesn't make any sense. I thought you had to be bitten to … I mean … my god … what the hell, Al?"

"That's what I thought too. So did Jeff I guess."

Dale walked over to the window. A crowd had begun to gather on the front lawn. The sound of the gunshot had betrayed the fact something inside was very wrong. "What are we going to do with Jeff and Barbara?" Dale asked.

He stared at the two for a long while before he spoke. "We'll bury them in the northeast corner, somewhere out of sight."

"What are we going to tell them?" Dale asked and motioned toward the group outside.

Al joined Dale at the window and took in the scene. "The same thing we're going to tell Sarah, the truth."

"Which is?"

"Two of our people are dead … and we're not as invulnerable in here as we thought."


	8. Hopes and Dreams

**Author's Note: **I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read and review my work. I post this new chapter with some apprehension. It is by far my longest. It introduces a significant new character and contains a great deal of back story. Please feel free to offer any comments or suggestions. I take all reviews seriously and they have helped me to produce a better product. Enjoy!

July 11th, 1996

The earth had settled and the grass had grown back. Apart from a pile of large stones and some flowers, there was nothing extraordinary about the spot. Anyone who didn't know what was there would probably not be able to guess. But Al knew. He couldn't forget. He had dug these graves himself. Dale wanted to help but Al insisted on doing it alone. "Jeff was my friend. I'll do it," was all he said.

It was the most isolated corner of the grounds. Al came here a lot, but only when no one else was around. It was shady, private, and his favorite place to go when he wanted to be alone and just think. Every time he came he would put flowers on the stones he had placed there to mark the spot. Sometimes he would talk to Jeff and Barbara about anything that came to mind but mostly about how Sarah was doing.

After her parents died, Sarah moved in with Chris and Jennifer Driscoll and their two teenage daughters, Elizabeth and Rose. There was no shortage of people who wanted to take Sarah in but it was Karen's idea that the Driscolls home would probably be the best, most stable environment. The Driscolls had come to Offutt from Omaha where Chris owned and operated Driscoll's Auto Service and Jennifer was a nurse. There were other families at East Lake but the Driscolls had the unique, albeit heart breaking, distinction of being the only family to survive intact with no deaths.

Al often thought about the secret hopes he entertained, the ones he never told anyone except Jeff and Barbara. It was in his nature to be less than optimistic but deep down he still held on to the hope that he would eventually be able to return to his own home, that this nightmare would somehow come to an end. He hoped that there were other survivors out there in the world somewhere. His hope, however, grew weaker with each passing day.

Of course, he wasn't the only one. Nobody wanted to believe that forty-five people could be all that remained of humanity. Still, apart from hope, they had no reason to believe anything to the contrary. Venturing far from the confines of the wall was an increasingly rare occurrence and when they did go outside they never saw anyone. They only saw them. Nobody ever came to East Lake, but they came. It was always _them_.

Even though Jeff and Barbara were put down before they could infect anyone else, the fear they had spread was far more virulent that the disease that had brought them back from the dead. Before they died, it had never occurred to anyone that the walkers didn't need to climb the wall or breach the gate to get inside.

It had been nearly two years since Al had dug these graves and everyone was still haunted by the same worries, the same questions. What would happen if someone else cracked under the strain like Jeff had? Would others die like Barbara? Will the walkers ever go away? Are we going to be trapped in here for the rest of our lives?

Sometimes it was hard to not wonder why the group worked so hard to survive, to just keep on living. Their whole world had been reduced to just a few hundred acres. They were outnumbered and cornered. Apart from each other, death was their most intimate acquaintance. Every day since their arrival had been hard. Still, Al smiled because today was going to be different. Today was going to be a good day.

"Everybody's happy," Al said just above a whisper. "I wish you two could have been here to see it. I know you would have especially loved it Barb."

Al looked at his watch. It was almost time. "I have to go. I promise I'll come back soon." He gently placed the flowers he had brought on the stones and walked away.

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Martha, one of her closer friends, had spent the last two hours helping Karen fix her hair and get dressed. Karen looked at herself in the full-length mirror. The dress was a gift from Al. She learned after the fact that he had asked Martha to help him by writing down the size for which he should look. Martha wanted to go with him so she could make the selection herself but he flatly refused.

In the end, the dress wasn't a perfect fit but it was close enough and the best Al could do while a few others with him fought off a couple of dozen walkers. Even though Karen appreciated it, she couldn't help being a little angry that he put himself and others at risk to get it for her.

Al had led plenty of missions outside the wall but they were all for things that the group needed. This was the first trip they had ever made for a luxury item and Karen was more than a little uncomfortable over being the reason. Al didn't even want to think how angry she might have been if he had broken down and taken Martha, their only doctor, with them.

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Martha had graduated med school in 1992 and was serving her residency at Willow Lakes Hospital when the epidemic started. Every emergency room in Omaha and the surrounding area was overflowing with people who had been attacked by walkers. Doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel were being strained well beyond their capacity.

It was the morning of June 5th. Martha was trying to get some sleep on a sofa in the accounting office. There were so many people pouring into the hospital that she knew there was no point in bothering to go home. She looked at her watch. It was almost 7 o'clock. She had managed to get only four hours sleep but that would have to do. Dutifully, she rose and made her way to the staff elevator.

She expected things to be hectic but wasn't prepared for the unbridled chaos that greeted her when she stepped off the elevator. The noise was almost deafening. People were talking and shouting. Staff members were running about and every phone rang incessantly. The waiting area was filled far beyond its capacity. Every seat was taken and dozens of people sat on the floor while hundreds more spilled into the adjoining hallways in every direction. There were easily twice as many people now as when she had gone upstairs to rest.

The severity of their injuries varied as did the particulars of their stories. However, most of the people there had one thing in common. They had been attached by one or more crazed individuals and had narrowly escaped with their lives. Now they were here in search of help.

Martha approached the nurses' station and cast an eye at the on-duty board. The top line read, "Primary Triage Nurse: Jennifer Driscoll".

"What have you got for me, Jennifer?"

"The same thing as four hours ago, only more of it."

"Who's at the top of the list?"

"Mr. Kimball in trauma room 4A. He's in the worst shape of anyone I've seen in the past twenty-fours hours." Jennifer flipped frantically through the pages on her clipboard. "I'll bring you some examination worksheets as soon as I can find some more"

"Thanks. I'll get right on it." Martha was soon standing outside the room. She knocked once and entered. Inside was an elderly man lying on the examination table. He looked to be in his late 70s or even older. His eyes were closed and wrapped around his hand was a blood soaked handkerchief.

"Hello, I'm Dr. Tennant. I'm here to examine you." There was no response. Martha moved to his side and leaned over him. The old man was pale and sweaty. His breathing was very shallow. "At least he's alive," she thought. For a moment, she had had her doubts. "Mr. Kimball? Mr. Kimball?" She gently nudged his shoulder. "Mr. Kimball?"

Suddenly, his eyes jerked open and he grabbed her wrist with his bandaged hand. She tried to pull away but he wouldn't let go and his grip was surprisingly strong.

"She didn't mean it!" he shouted.

"Please, calm down. Mr. Kimball, you need to relax."

"She didn't mean it!" He tightened his grip and a stream of blood seeped out from under the bandage and ran down his arm.

"Mr. Kimball!"

He released Martha and sank back down on the table. His eyes were unblinking and crazed. "She didn't mean it. She …"

"Mr. Kimball, what are you talking about? Who didn't mean it? Didn't mean what?"

"She didn't … she's my sweetheart. Sixty-two years … she would never …"

"Please, Mr. Kimball. Who are you talking about?"

"Our anniversary was yesterday. Sixty-two years together. She's my sweetheart. I always told her so."

"Your wife?"

"Sixty-two years."

"What's her name?"

"She didn't mean to do it. Annie's been sick. She's been sick so long."

"You're wife's name is Annie?" He nodded in reply. "Where is Annie now?"

"She's gone. She's out there somewhere with the others. She's with the others but it's not her fault. It's not her fault!! She's my sweetheart. She's sick."

"Mr. Kimball, what's not her fault?"

The old man slowly turned his head toward Martha, looking at her for the first time. Tears flowed freely down his face. He held up his bloody hand. "She bit me."

At that moment, a cacophony of screams erupted outside the door. "Stay here Mr. Kimball. I'm going to see what's going on. I promise I'll be right back."

Martha opened the door and looked into the hallway. At first she didn't see anything but within a few seconds a large group of people came spilling around the corner and down the hall. Medical staff and patients alike scrambled past and over each other trying to get away from something.

"I'll be right back," she repeated to Mr. Kimball and closed the door behind her. "What is it? What's going on? What the hell is the matter?!" she called out to the crowd. Someone in the teaming mass of people yelled back, "They're here! They're at the doors!"

"Well that tells me a lot," Martha thought. Staying close to the wall, she slowly moved against the flow of the crowd, making her way to the ER. When she rounded the corner the ER entrance came into view along with what everyone was fleeing.

Pressed against the automatic sliding doors was a gang of about twenty-five people. Most of them were covered in blood and had visible injuries. Several of them had large sections of skin torn from their hands, arms, neck, and face. Some injuries were more serious. Several people had missing fingers and one man in particular had only a few dangling strands of flesh where his lower arm used to be.

Two security guards, one on either side, were trying desperately to push the doors together and lock them while simultaneously fighting back the frenzied mass of hands reaching through. The doors were within a few inches of each other when one of the men lost his grip and went flying forward into his associate, knocking him to the ground.

Before they could get back on their feet, the doors opened wide and the mass of dead poured in. Several descended on the two guards while the rest scattered in all directions in search of other prey. Martha turned around and ran for room 4A. She didn't know what she was going to do but she knew she couldn't leave that poor man behind.

Martha bolted through the door. Mr. Kimball was no longer on the table. He was standing in the corner, facing the wall. "Mr. Kimball, you need to come with me. We have to get out of here right now!" He didn't move. "Mr. Kimball, did you hear me?"

The old man's head snapped around. His lips were curled back in a snarl, exposing gritted teeth. His dilated pupils made his eyes look black. Upon seeing her, he lunged forward with outstretched hands.

Martha backpedaled out of the room and took off running with Mr. Kimball in close pursuit. She ran toward the far end of the hall in the direction of the ambulance entrance, figuring it was her best chance of escape from the building. When she turned the corner her hope was renewed. A man was entering the building. In his hand he carried a blood soaked baseball bat.

"Help me!" she screamed as she sprinted toward him.

"Duck!" he yelled.

Without hesitation or question, she fell to the floor. Less than a second later, the bat swung through the space where Martha's head used to be. There was a loud crack as it slammed into Mr. Kimball's head. The old man staggered sideways and collapsed in a heap only a couple of feet from his intended prey.

The force of the impact caved in the entire side of his face. One eye dangled from its socket and his head was twisted at a sickeningly unnatural angle. "Oh my god! Oh my god!" Martha screamed as she scrambled away from the body and to her feet.

"I'm at the ambulance entrance. Where are you?"

"What?" Martha asked.

"The kids are fine. Just tell me where you are." The stranger who had just saved her life now seemed oblivious to her presence but he was talking to someone.

"I'm fine. I just ran into someone who needed help … they're fine and … I don't know who it is just shut up and tell me where the hell you are!!"

Martha finally realized that he was speaking into a cell phone wireless ear piece. The man looked at her and said, "What's your name?"

"Martha … Martha Tennant."

"Martha Tennant," he repeated into his ear piece. "Yes, I'll take care of her. Administrator's office? We'll be right there. Hang on."

"Who are you talking to?" Martha asked.

"My wife. She's here in the hospital. Where is the administrator's office?"

"Whose your wife?"

"Jennifer Driscoll. I'm Chris."

"I know Jennifer."

"Yeah, she knows you too. I have her on the phone. She's trapped in the administrator's office. Can you take me there?"

"Yes."

"Then let's go, Martha"

Together, they snaked their way quickly but quietly through the halls, alert for any danger. Martha grabbed Chris's arm, leaned in close and whispered, "The office is around the next corner at the very end of the hall." Chris nodded his head, indicating his understanding. They didn't know exactly what was waiting around the corner but they could hear banging and growling.

Both peered into the hall. Outside the administrator's office, with his back to them, was the one-armed man Martha had seen at the ER entrance. He was pounding relentlessly on the door with his good arm and what remained of the other.

"Stay here," Chris whispered. Slowly, he crept toward the creature. Once in range, he dispatched him in the same way he had Mr. Kimball. He tried the knob but it was locked. "Jennifer!" he yelled.

"Chris?" came the muffled reply from the other side of the door.

"It's okay. You can come out now."

The door swung open and there stood Jennifer. She stared at her husband for a moment as if she was trying to determine whether or not what she was seeing war real. "Oh my god, Chris!" she yelled and threw her arms around him.

"Are you okay?"

"I am now!"

Jennifer's eyes wandered to the man who lay motionless on the floor. "Oh god! Oh god!"

"Jennifer! Pull yourself together! You see that thing on the floor? I had to drive through a few thousand of them to get here! It's true. All the stuff we've been hearing on the news about dead people coming back to life is true."

"No! No! That's not possible! Do you hear me? It's not possible!" Martha yelled. "I'm a doctor and I know that can't be true. That's just crazy talk!"

"It is possible and it's happening! I've seen it! Look at him!" Chris pointed to the now dead walker. "An arm ripped off! Look at the side of his neck! It's completely gone! Do you see those holes in his chest? They look a lot like bullet holes to me and I didn't do any of that! You look me in the eye and tell me he was alive when I hit him in the head!"

Martha looked down at the floor, incapable of bringing her eyes to meet Chris's. "Yeah, that's what I thought. We have to get out of here and to somewhere safe right now!"

"Where? Where are we going and where are the girls?" Jennifer asked.

"The girls are at home. All the doors and windows are locked. I gave them my pistol and told them not to open the door for anyone but you or me."

"You left a thirteen and a fourteen year old girl alone with a loaded pistol?!" Jennifer was clearly very angry.

"Would you rather I brought them with me?!" Chris closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Look, we have to get out of here and get the girls. We'll go to Offutt. I've heard that a lot of people are going there for help."

"Whatever. Let's just get home and make sure the girls are okay. We'll go wherever you say." Jennifer turned to Martha. "Do you have your car here?"

"Car? Oh please! I'm a first year resident with student loans. I can barely afford my rent. I have to take the bus."

"You better come with us. The city is crawling with those things and it's getting worse," Chris said.

Martha thought about Mr. Kimball and the one-armed man. She looked at Chris and the blood stained bat in his hand. Like everyone else, she had been hearing the stories about the dead for weeks. At first, she didn't believe it. As time dragged on, she didn't want to believe it. Now, she couldn't run from the truth anymore. It was right in front of her and it was bloody.

"Offutt?"

"Yeah," Chris replied.

"Alright, let's go.

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Martha fastened the last few buttons on the back of the dress. "Turn around," she said. She looked over Karen one last time. "Beautiful. You look absolutely beautiful," she declared.

"Thank you for helping me," Karen said and put her arms around her friend.

There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Karen called out.

The door opened and Al stuck his head in. "Everybody's ready. How are you coming along in here?" he asked.

Karen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

"I'll be waiting downstairs," Al said and disappeared.

"Are you scared?" Martha asked her.

"A little bit," Karen admitted.

"Don't be. Everything's going to be okay."

When Karen stepped out the front door she was greeted by the sight of everybody gathered around the gazebo in Karen's yard. Al was waiting for her on the front steps. She took his outstretched arm. "Karen, I know I'm not your father but … for what it's worth … I couldn't be prouder if you were my daughter."

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I couldn't be prouder if you were my father."

Together, they walked across the lawn and up the gazebo steps. Al hugged Karen and turned to face the groom. "She's all yours, Dale."

To most people there, this all seemed rather sudden and in a very real sense it was. For the longest time the relationship between Dale and Karen had been limited mostly to the business of managing the community. Otherwise, their interaction was casual at best. However, that had all started to change a few months ago.

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Dale was the permanent night watch on the gate. In fact, no one could remember a single night since they had been there that he wasn't the one standing watch. Al had often tried to convince him to let someone else do it once in awhile but Dale always insisted that he enjoyed it and it was not like he would be asleep anyway.

It was March 23rd. The day had been warm but as afternoon turned to evening, the temperature had gone down. It was just after 9 o'clock and Karen was going around the house closing windows she had opened earlier to let in fresh air. From her living room windows she had a clear view of the gate. There was a full moon out and she could see Dale sitting there with no coat or gloves.

Karen went outside to check the thermometer that hung next to her front door. It indicated 40 degrees. "There's no way he can't be freezing," she thought. She went to her bedroom and after a moment of rummaging through the closet, she found a blanket.

Dale had been on duty for a little more than an hour. The moon was bright tonight and visibility was good. He stared intently at where the road leading away from the gate disappeared over the hill, alert for any movement.

"What are you doing?"

Dale spun around in his seat. There stood Karen. "What?"

"What are you doing?" she repeated.

He was taken aback by the question. He looked around to make sure she wasn't talking to someone else. "I'm … uh … I'm watching the gate?"

"Yes, and it's 40 degrees out here. Look at you, no coat, no blanket, and no gloves. Here, take this." She dropped the blanket in his lap.

"Really, I'm fine," he insisted and tried to hand it back.

"Well, you're not going to stay fine if you keep coming out here like this. Now take it."

Dale realized that an argument would be futile. "Thanks," he said and draped the blanket over his shoulders.

"How long are you going to be out here?" Karen asked.

"Until 4 A.M."

"Have you seen anything?"

"Not so far but it's still early. Actually, we don't get much action at night because it's usually so dark out here that they can't see anything. When one of them does come up on the wall or the gate in the dark it's only because they stumbled on it by accident. But there's a full moon out so we might get some visitors." Dale smiled. "I have another chair here if you want to sit for a while and wait for one."

Karen thought for a moment before answering. She didn't really have a reason that she had to leave. All she was going to do was a little reading and then go to bed. "Alright," she finally said, "I'll stay for awhile."

For the next three hours they sat together. They talked about what they did in the old world, their favorite movies, books, games, what their plans had been before all of this happened, how they thought everything was going to end. During that time and for the rest of the night, there was no sign of a walker. The next night was equally uneventful, as was the night after that. No walkers came to the gate in the darkness but Karen did.

Night-after-night she came to the gate to sit and talk with Dale. After a few weeks, she started showing up before Dale did. In response, Dale started showing up even earlier. Sometimes Karen would bring food and Dale would bring books. They would eat and take turns reading to each other while the daylight lasted.

When it grew dark, they would go back to talking or they would just look at the stars. With no city lights to diminish the view, the night sky was a spectacular sight. It was truly a happy state of affairs and persisted without interruption until June 28th, the evening everything changed.

It was 8 o'clock and Karen and Dale were playing their favorite game. Dale looked at his watch. "You're almost out of time. Only two minutes to go."

"I know! I know!" she said. Her eyes were closed. She was deep in thought. Several seconds later she exclaimed, "I've got it! I've got it! Val Kilmer was in the movie _Willow_ and Robert De Niro was in the movie _Backdraft_, both of which were directed by Ron Howard. One degree between Kilmer and De Niro! Who's the queen?!"

"Whoa! I expected you to get it but not in one step."

"I'm on a roll tonight! Go ahead, pick an actor, any…" She didn't get to finish the sentence.

BAM! A loud ping resounded through the night. Karen and Dale had become so engrossed in their game and each other that they didn't notice the walker's approach until it tripped and fell headfirst into the steel bars of the gate.

Together, they slowly approached the gate. Dale had his weapon drawn and leveled at the inert form right outside the gate. Karen remained a step behind Dale. "Is it dead? I mean … is it really dead?" she asked with more than a hint of apprehension in her voice. She had encountered plenty of walkers on supply runs. Still, she had never gotten used to them, only better at hiding how much they terrified her.

Dale looked down at the woman lying motionless on the ground. He guessed she was somewhere in her 30s but her face was so emaciated that it was hard to be certain. "I don't know. It looks like it hit its head on the bars. That might have been enough to …"

Suddenly, the creature's eyes jerked open and it began struggling to get back on its feet. Dale took aim and fired a single head shot. "Well, it's really dead now," Dale said. He looked down the road and scanned the tree line in both directions for as far as he could see. "I guess it was alone," he finally said.

"What are you going to do now?" Karen asked.

"Nothing. It's getting late and it's too dangerous to go out now. We'll move the body when it's daylight."

"Oh no," Karen whispered and backed away.

"What is it?"

"Her left hand."

Dale knelt down. He was now fewer than 12 inches from the dead woman. On her left hand she wore an engagement ring but no wedding band. Apparently, she had been engaged but died before the intended day. He stared long and hard at that ring. To most people it represented a promise. However, in that moment all Dale could see were hopes, dreams, and plans that died with the old world.

For a long time, Dale didn't move or say anything, he simply stared at that ring. "I'm not going to let it end like this," he thought. He stood and turned toward Karen. "I love you," he said.

"What?"

"I love you."

Time seemed to slow down. Her mind groped desperately for something, anything to say but she couldn't find the words. Her eyes flitted about, looking in every direction except Dale's.

Dale knew he had said something he could never take back. He thought she was going to walk away but instead she dropped her head into her hands and started to cry so hard that her whole body shook. She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and buried her face in his chest. "Say it again," she pleaded.

"I love you."

"I … I love you too. I was so scared all this time you didn't or you wouldn't love me and I … I love you! I love you more than anything!"

Dale put his arms around her and she relaxed her grip enough to lean back and look up at his face. After a long silence, both started laughing. "What we do now?" Dale asked.

"I don't know."

"Marry me," he said matter of factly.

"Marry?"

"Yeah."

"But …how can we …?"

"Al can do it. I mean he's no minister but I think he'll do fine just the same." Given the circumstances, his logic was unassailable.

"Yes, I will marry you!"

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Al had never been married or even been to a wedding and here he was about to perform one. Everyone moved in closer around the gazebo and Al took his place between Dale and Karen. He wondered if they were as nervous as he was.

"When Dale and Karen asked me to do this, I was surprised to say the least. I was humbled and I was scared. I've never been a church-going man and the events of the past few years have stretched my faith in God to the breaking point. However, when I look at these two … " He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and fight the tears welling up in his eyes. "When I look at these two carrying on with life, actually living instead of just surviving, it goes a long way to restoring my faith."

Al took a step closer to Dale and Karen. "Most of all, I feel honored that Dale and Karen consider me worthy to perform this task. I am also honored that all of you have seen fit to give me the authority to perform this ceremony. So … by virtue of that authority … Dale White, do you take Karen Jansen to be your wife for better or worse, no matter what the new world may bring?"

"I do," he replied.

"Karen Jansen, do you take Dale White to be your husband for better or worse, no matter what the new world may bring?"

"I do," she said as she wiped away a few tears.

"I now declare you Mr. and Mrs. White. You may kiss the bride!"

Everyone burst into applause and calls of "Kiss her! Kiss the bride!" Dale and Karen gladly obliged and Al breathed a sigh of relief. He had been practicing what he was going to say for the past few days. The ceremony was short and his choice of words may not have been conventional but they seemed appropriate.

"Thanks for everything," Karen told Al as she gave him a hug.

"Do you mind if I borrow Dale for just a second? I promise I'll bring him right back," Al asked. Karen.

"All right, but you had better not be long."

Al motioned for Dale to follow him to a spot several feet away from the gazebo. "Dale, I just want to let you know that I have the gate covered at night for at least the next week and if you even think about coming out to that gate, don't forget that I'll have my stick! If getting married doesn't get you to take the night off then I quit."

"Al, look I …"

"Dale," Al interrupted, "the material point is I want you to take some time to be with Karen. Enjoy life a little bit." Al cast a weary glance in the direction of the gate. "I don't think death is going anywhere."


	9. The Coming Storm

Author's Notes: This chapter has been a long time coming. My work doesn't allow me nearly the amount of time for writing that I would like. This chapter is not at all what I started out with. Originally, chapter 9 was going to cover a completely different series of events that those below. However, as I was writing it, I realized that it simply wasn't working and I wound up having to start it all over. The end result is The Coming Storm. Again, my gratitude goes out to those who have read and reviewed my work. Your comments have been encouraging and helpful. I want to extend a special thanks to Lieutenant B. for her technical advice on the medical stuff.

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May 1st, 1997

Dale slept better these days but not last night. Mostly, he kept his eyes closed and tried to will himself to sleep but it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop thinking about what he had to do in the morning.

The silence was broken by the sound of distant thunder. He looked at his watch. It was nearly 7 o'clock but it was still dark. He got out of bed and crossed the room to the window. Black clouds covered the horizon, blotting out the rising sun. There was a storm moving in and it looked like it was going to be a rough one.

"Man, this day's off to one hell of a start," Dale mumbled.

"Dale?"

He turned to see Karen peeking out from under the sheets. He walked over to her side of the bed and sat down.

"I'm sorry sweetie. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay." She sat up and placed a hand on the side of his face. "Are _you_ okay?"

"I'm fine," he lied. "I just need to go see about Kevin. I promised Michelle I'd come around this morning. I might as well go now. I doubt she'll be asleep."

"You're afraid he's going to die."

It wasn't a question. Karen said it as though it was a self evident fact. He hadn't wanted to admit it but now it was out in the open and denying it wasn't going to make it any less true. "Yeah, I am."

Karen wrapped her arms around him and placed her head on his chest. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's alright. I'll go see how he's doing and I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."

Dale got dressed and started out the door but turned back. "Karen, Kevin … Kevin didn't look good last night. This may turn out badly, very badly. You might want to prepare for the worst. If Michelle loses Kevin, I don't think she'll be able to handle it. She'll crack up hard."

"I'll talk to some of the other women. We'll be ready to do what we can."

"Thanks, honey."

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June 8th, 1993

Joe and Michelle Monthan had lived in the house for just over two years. They'd moved there from their downtown Omaha apartment after Michelle discovered she was going to have a baby. It was everything they dreamed it would be, a beautiful two-story home in a suburb on the western edge of Bellevue. They thought they would spend the rest of their lives there, which, at the moment didn't look like it would be much longer.

Even though the contagion had spread out of Omaha and into Bellevue, Joe had hoped that their home's distance from town would keep them safe but in the course of one night, the area went from being quiet to crawling with walkers.

All day, they'd been hiding upstairs, trying to be as quiet as they possibly could. Outside, there was sporadic gunfire and screaming, along with the occasional car speeding away. Their two-year old son, Kevin, would periodically look up from his toys and ask his mother, "Whas dat sound?" She would smile and tell him it was nothing to worry about.

Joe peered through the blinds. There were dozens of them outside but they were fairly spread out. However, looking down from their second floor bedroom gave him a commanding view of Cornhusker Road, which ran out of Bellevue and right past their neighborhood. A lot more of them were coming. If they were to have any hope of getting away they were going to have to make their move now.

"Are you ready?" Joe asked as he picked up the bag that held the few belongings they were taking with them. Michelle closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and replied with a nod.

"Let's go."

"Come on sweetheart." Michelle leaned over and picked up Kevin.

"Car?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, that's right. We're going somewhere in the car." She wiped away a few tears with her free hand. Her relative state of composure belied the incredible fear she was feeling.

"Papa?"

Michelle bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. She was trying so hard to keep a brave face so Kevin would remain calm. "No, baby. We're not going to grandpa's. We're going to a place called Offutt."

"Oppuff!"

Despite their circumstances, she couldn't help smiling at the boy's attempt at this new word. "Yep, we're going to Offutt and it's going to be a lot of fun."

"Yay!!" Kevin squealed and clapped his hands.

Michelle placed her hands over Kevin's and shook her head. "You have to be quiet honey."

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Joe could see a number of shadows moving across the living room curtains. There were several walkers only a few feet from the house. Fortunately, they hadn't figured out there were people inside. Based on his limited experience watching them from the window, Joe had determined that sudden movement and noise were hair triggers for these creatures. So far, their silence had paid off.

Joe raised a finger to his lips and then pointed at their son. There was no mistaking what he meant. It was up to Michelle to do whatever it was going to take to keep the boy quiet.

In the kitchen was a door that lead directly into the garage. Joe placed his ear against it and listened intently for sounds that might indicate some of them had gotten inside undetected. After about a minute, he was satisfied it was safe.

Noiselessly, they slipped into the garage and got in the car. Michelle strapped Kevin in his child seat and sat next to him. Joe took his place in the driver's seat. He removed the garage door opener from the glove compartment, placed the key in the ignition and steeled himself for what was outside.

He looked over his shoulder at his wife and son. "This is it. Ready?"

"Uh-huh."

Joe started the car and activated the garage door. It was agonizingly slow to open and frighteningly quick to attract attention. Within seconds, a gang of walkers descended on them.

Once the door was open only a couple of feet, a number of walkers crawled underneath it. They swarmed the car, pounding and clawing the windows. Michelle screamed as the car rocked from side to side while Kevin seemed blissfully ignorant of the gravity of their situation.

After about fifteen seconds, the door was open enough for Joe to drive through. "Hold on!" he yelled as they sped out of their drive and into the street. The immediate area was now crowded with the undead and Joe ploughed through them like a lawn mower through tall weeds. The car rocked and bumped as he ran over several of them. The crunching sounds were sickening. The further he got from their house, the more easily he could maneuver around them.

Michelle looked back, beyond the horde of walkers pursuing their fleeing vehicle, to the home they might not see again for a long time, if ever. She reminded herself that it was just a house and she should be grateful they had escaped with their lives.

Joe raced through the narrow streets and finally turned onto Cornhusker, heading toward Offutt. The road was thick with walkers but Cornhusker was four lanes wide and had emergency lanes on both sides which gave him enough room to avoid hitting most of them. He avoided making any sudden moves, believing that glancing blows would be safer than swerving to miss one only to hit another head on.

His plan was to take the exit onto the Kennedy Freeway and get off on Capehart Road. That would take him directly to the main gate. Emergency broadcasts on radio and television had identified this as the only open point of entry to the base.

As they topped the hill just before Kennedy, Joe slammed on the brakes. The car came to a screeching halt just short of rear ending a pickup truck. Before them, vehicles clogged Cornhusker and Kennedy. People ran through and over the cars, trying to get away from the walkers chasing them. Others were trapped in their vehicles, hopelessly surrounded. It was a horrific spectacle of living and dead swimming and drowning in a river of metal, glass, asphalt, and blood.

"New plan!" Joe shouted. He turned the car around and began driving in the opposite direction.

"Where are you going?" Michelle screamed.

"New plan! Just hang on!"

He turned onto 36th, a small street that wound through a number of small residential areas and ended where Capehart turned into a dirt road. It was much farther out of the way but less likely to be fraught with the possibility of disaster.

Just as Joe hoped, their alternate route was much quieter. Still, all along the way were signs of the growing disaster. Most houses showed varying degrees of damage and some were on fire. Surprisingly, he saw no cars along the street. Apparently, everyone in the area had already made their getaway, was stuck on or near Kennedy, or still hiding in their homes.

"Michelle, look to your left."

"What? Why?"

"Damn it, just do it!!"

Michelle did as she was told. Joe didn't have time to explain. They had just come to the end of a row of trees and a field on the right side of the road had come into view. He'd looked over just in time to see a young woman running across it be tackled to the ground by three walkers. There was nothing that could be done to save her and there was no need for Michelle to have to see it.

Joe made a hard left onto Capehart. The street was clear so he accelerated to nearly sixty miles an hour. Offutt was now only a few miles away. Soon, the Kennedy overpass was in sight. There were some vehicles scattered around the area along with a handful of undead but no serious obstacles were blocking their way.

"Almost there!" Joe yelled.

They were just about to go under the overpass when a walker stumbled into the road from behind a large truck stopped on the shoulder. Reflexively, Joe turned the wheel hard in an attempt to miss the creature. The car spun out of control and slammed driver's side first into one of the overpass's support pillars.

The force of the crash folded the car against the concrete column. Glass from the driver's side windows sprayed in all directions. Michelle's seat belt locked and the sudden jerk peeled a strip of skin away from over her collar bone. Kevin was crying hysterically but miraculously was unharmed.

Michelle removed her seat belt, leaned forward and shook Joe who was slumped across the steering wheel. "Joe?" There was no response. "Joe? Joe? OH GOD NO!! … JOE!!"

His eyes snapped open, he sat bolt upright and began screaming. A large portion of his door was folded down over his left leg. It was broken, bleeding, and pinned into place. He tried to free himself but the pain was too intense and there was no way human hands could pull back the metal holding him down.

He took several deep breaths through gritted teeth and turned to look at his wife. "Michelle, I… oh no!" he said.

"What?"

He pointed down the street in the direction from which they had come. About one hundred feet away was the walker he had swerved to miss, hobbling toward them. In the distance were several more of his brethren rapidly approaching.

"Michelle, you have to take Kevin and get out of here. The base is half a mile over that hill. You can make it. Take the boy and run … now!"

"No," she sobbed, "I can't leave you."

"Yes you can and you will. I'm done but you can save yourself and our son. Get out of here!"

"No."

"Goddammit, go!!"

Crying and trembling, she unbuckled Kevin and with great difficulty, got the back door open. She leaned over and kissed her husband for the last time. "I … I …love …I love you," she stammered.

"I love you too."

"Love you," Kevin added.

"Love you son. You just take care of your mom. There's a good boy."

For a moment, Joe watched Michelle make her escape before turning his attention to the approaching dead. "Hey! Yeah, you! Over here!" he yelled, waving his hands. "Come here! All you can eat!! Right here!" His only thought at that moment was to distract them so they would ignore Michelle and Kevin.

A few seconds later, ten walkers were on the car, pounding on the passenger side windows and windshield, which had survived the impact. Joe smiled as they pawed and beat on the glass. "That's right you bastards. You're gonna have to work for dinner today."

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Later that evening, Michelle sat in a chair in the corner of a small room that had been assigned to her by base personnel. Kevin slept in her arms. There was a faint knock at the door. "Come in," she said.

In stepped Master Sergeant Richards, the Security Forces troop who first spotted her approach at the gate and ran out to get her. She'd begged him to go help her husband but at that time he didn't seem to even hear her pleas, much less care.

"What is it?" she asked.

He kept his eyes on the floor as he crossed the room to where she sat and placed a ring and a necklace on the table next to her. She immediately recognized them as Joe's.

"I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Sergeant? When you found him," her voice cracked, "was he …was he one of …had he turned into …"

"Yes ma'am." His voice was flat, not emotionless, just tired.

"Did you … take care of …"

"Yes ma'am."

A very long and painful silence followed. Finally, Master Sergeant Richards moved toward the door.

"Thank you, Sergeant."

He looked over his shoulder and into her eyes. "Yes ma'am."

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Dale stood in front of Michelle's door. "Dear God, I haven't prayed much the past few years. I won't ask you why this is happening and I won't pretend to understand. But … please … I really could use some good news today," he prayed under his breath before he knocked. A few moments later, the door opened and there stood Martha.

"Martha?"

"Hi Dale." She motioned him in and closed the door.

"How long have you been here?"

"All night," she replied. Her haggard face and bloodshot eyes indicated she hadn't slept much, if at all.

"Where's Michelle?"

"She's upstairs with Kevin."

"Has she slept?"

"Maybe an hour or two."

"Kevin?"

Martha slowly shook her head. "I …I don't think he's going to make it."

"I want to see him."

Dale crept up the stairs to Kevin's room. The door was slightly ajar and he pushed it open just far enough to see inside. Michelle was on the far side of the bed on her knees, her hands clasped together as though in prayer. Her red, puffy eyes were locked on her son. If she had noticed Dale, she didn't let on.

Kevin, now six-years old, lay unconscious on the bed wearing only his underwear. Michelle and Martha had stripped him to help his body dissipate some of the heat from his 103 degree fever.

His skin was horrifyingly pale. A sporadic, faint gurgling sound coming from his mouth was the only sign he was still breathing. He had become so thin that every one of he ribs was clearly visible. Dale hadn't thought it possible but Kevin actually looked worse than he did last night. A week ago he had been perfectly healthy. "All this pain," Dale thought. "All this over a piece of glass."

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Kevin was the youngest child in the community and Sarah's favorite playmate. They would spend hours together at each other's houses or outside. The first two weeks of April had been unusually cold for Nebraska but the weather had warmed considerably near the end of the month so Kevin and Sarah were spending most of their time outdoors.

Kevin wanted to play his favorite game, hide-and-go-seek. "Please," he begged. Sarah didn't share his enthusiasm. "Come on. I played everything you wanted to yesterday. Your not being fair."

He was right, of course. Jennifer always told her to play nice and part of that is taking turns. "Okay," Sarah agreed.

"YES!! You count to … uh … you count to twenty."

Sarah scarcely had her eyes covered before Kevin took off running. "Don't count too fast!" he yelled without looking back. He darted out of Sarah's backyard and down the street, making a beeline for Dale and Karen's house. He already had his hiding place in mind.

Though construction of East Lake had been completed, site cleanup had not. Scattered around the property were a number of large waste bins, each filled with an assortment of scrap metal, wood, bricks, and glass from the build. The nearest one was behind the property manager's house where Dale and Karen lived. It was nearly eight feet tall and twenty feet long. Kevin crouched down behind it. He thought for sure that Sarah would never look there.

Several minutes elapsed with no sign of Sarah. Silently, Kevin congratulated himself on his success. Still, part of the fun was being found so he moved to look if Sarah was anywhere in sight. Before he could peek, Sarah jumped out from around the corner.

"Gotcha!!" she yelled.

Kevin laughed and spun around to make a run for home base back in Sarah's yard. He made it only a few feet before he tripped and fell face first to the ground. Instinctively, he put out his hands to break the fall.

The pain was instantaneous and unlike anything Kevin had experienced in his short life. He got to his feet and began screaming wildly. "AAAHHH! … HELP!!! … IT HURTS … PLEASE HELP ME!" He looked imploringly at his friend, his left hand extended out in front of him. It was bleeding profusely, his panic stricken heart propelling small jets of blood toward Sarah.

The only thing Sarah could think to do was to get help from a grown up. She turned and ran. "Don't leave me!" Kevin pleaded.

"I'll be right back. I promise."

"Hurry!"

Sarah pounded on Dale and Karen's back door. "Help! I need help! Mr. White? Miss White?"

The door swung open and there stood Dale. "Sarah? What is it?"

"It's Kevin! He's hurt!"

Dale saw the blood on her shirt and his legs went weak. He actually had to clutch the door frame to keep his balance. His stomach twisted into a knot. The last time Sarah came seeking his help, two people were dead. He dropped to one knee and grabbed Sarah by the shoulders. "Where is he?"

"He's behind the dumpster," she said, pointing to the bin some hundred feet away.

"Just a second, Sarah." Dale closed the door. He didn't want her to see him take the pistol from the hallway bureau. He concealed the weapon under his shirt, opened the door, and pulled Sarah inside. "Sarah …are you okay?" She nodded. "What I mean is … did Kevin … are you hurt?" Sarah was confused by this line of questioning but simply shook her head. "Sarah, listen to me carefully. Karen is over at Martha's right now. I'll go see about Kevin. You stay right here until I get back. DO NOT go anywhere until I come back."

Cautiously, Dale approached the container. On the other side, he found Kevin. The boy was on his knees, his head bowed. His shirt and pants were covered with blood. Dale swallowed hard and placed a hand on his weapon. "Kevin?"

Kevin looked up. His face was bright red and tear stained. He cradled his injured hand against his chest. "Mr. White … my hand hurts … can you make it stop?"

Dale breathed a sigh of relief. He felt bad over having been so quick to assume the very worst. Mostly, he felt sick at heart because experience had taught him that his assumption wasn't unreasonable.

"What happened to you, Kevin?"

"I don't know. I fell down and my hand started hurting."

"Let me see," Dale said as he took the boy's hand in his own.

"OW! OW! OW!"

"I'm sorry. I know it hurts but I need to look at it."

His palm was sliced open all the way across. A large piece of glass, refuse that didn't make it into the waste container, was wedged into the wound. "I need to get you over to Martha's. Come on, I'll carry you."

Dale sent Sarah home with the promise he would personally come around later to let her know how her friend was doing. When he arrived at Martha's, he sent Karen to get Michelle. He stayed to assist with the removal of the glass and the cleaning and bandaging of the would. As best Martha could tell, the glass had remained in one piece. There didn't appear to be any significant damage to any of his tendons. Kevin would make a full recovery. At least, that's what Martha thought.

For the first couple of days following his accident, he appeared to be doing fine. The bleeding finally stopped and the cut was closing. However, when Martha was changing his bandage on the third day, she observed that the area around the cut was inflamed. It had become infected. Kevin's hand was swollen and he complained that his entire arm was hurting.

Martha started Kevin on a regiment of the strongest antibiotics in their possession; they had long since raided surrounding pharmacies for all the drugs they had in stock.. Yet, despite Martha's best efforts, he became progressively more ill and after only seven days he was reduced to the state in which Dale now found him.

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"Dale? Could you come with me for a minute?" Martha stood at the top of the stairs and motioned him to follow her. She led him downstairs and into the kitchen where Al was waiting. The three sat down at the table.

"What are we looking at, Martha?" Dale asked.

"The cut on Kevin's hand shows all the signs of staphylococcus aureus infection. Without the equipment to do a culture and analyze it I can't be sure so I'm giving it my best guess. I've been giving him dicloxacillin but he's not responding. Right now, I think … I think his blood is turning septicemic."

"Is he going to die?" Dale asked. Martha didn't answer. She didn't even look at him. He grabbed her by the wrist. "Is he going to die?!"

"Yes … unless …"

"Unless what?"

"He might have a chance if we can get our hands on some intravenous antibiotics."

"Fine, " Dale said, "we'll hit the nearest drug store and …"

"Wait a minute," Martha interrupted, "it's not that easy. The stuff we're going to need isn't going to be in a regular pharmacy."

"Where do we have to go?"

"A hospital pharmacy would have what we're looking for."

"Offutt," Al said. Dale and Martha turned their eyes toward their friend who had, until now, remained silent.

"What?" Martha asked.

"The nearest hospital is the one on base. Will they have what you're talking about?"

Willow Lakes had a contract with Erhling Berquist, the base hospital, to provide doctors to the base's emergency room on weekends. Martha had done her share of weekend shifts and was familiar with their supplies. They were as well equipped as any civilian hospital. "There's just as much chance we'll find something there as anywhere else."

That was all the encouragement Dale required. "Alright, let's do it. Martha, write down what you want us to get and we'll …"

"No!" she shouted. "I'm going with you!"

"Like hell you are. We can't risk losing our only doctor. You're not going to do Kevin or anyone else any good if you're dead," Dale ranted.

"What are you going to do when you get there and they don't have anything on my list? Huh? Are YOU going to evaluate what they do have? What if you get the wrong drugs? In case you haven't figured it out, as far as Kevin is concerned, you coming back empty handed or with something I can't use is just as good as me being dead!"

Dale couldn't fault her reasoning but he wasn't ready to give up. "Al, help me out here."

Al looked at Martha, then Dale and back to Martha again. "I'm going to go get Chris to help us," Al said as he started out of the kitchen. "Dale, get ready to go. As for you Martha … you better get ready to go too."

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It was almost noon and the storm Dale had seen in the distance earlier that morning now consumed the entire sky. Lightning snaked across the clouds and down to the ground. Rain was coming down hard and the wind blew water across the road in waves.

Over the years, they had managed to procure a number of other vehicles in addition to their bus. The powerful side winds made their heavy, dual-wheel truck the obvious choice for this trip. Chris sat in the front seat next to Al. Dale and Martha sat in the back. This was the first time she had left East Lake. A couple of hours ago, she had been gung ho to go on this mission to save Kevin's life. She wasn't a coward but now that she was actually outside the walls, she could feel a little of her bravado slipping away.

The heavy rain severely limited their visibility so Al crept along at barely twenty-five miles an hour. Still, through the downpour, Martha could see many hazy figures shambling along in the distance. She wondered how many more the rain concealed.

As they neared the base, the intensity of the storm lessened. The thunder and lightning persisted but by the time they reached Capehart, the rain had slowed to a steady shower.

"Last chance to check your weapons before we hit the hospital," Al said.

Dale and Chris ensured their pistols were loaded and operational. "Here, this is for you," Dale said and handed a .38 revolver to Martha. She eyed the weapon with more than a little hesitation.

"Correct me if I'm not understanding the system here but I was under the distinct impression that I'm here to get the medical supplies and you three make sure I don't get killed."

Dale nodded. "No, you're right. Still, it's not a perfect world. You know … best laid plans of mice and men and all that."

"Yeah, I know," she replied and reluctantly accepted the pistol.

They crested the Fort Crook Road overpass and the gate came into view. Al hit the brakes and brought the truck to a complete stop. Though they hadn't come near this place for four years, Al was sure he was ready for whatever they might find there. He was wrong.

"Dear god," he whispered. "Do you guys see it? Do you see what I'm seeing?"

For a long time nobody said a word, they simply tried to take in the scene that stretched out before them. Was it real? Finally, Chris muttered, "I see it too."

There were walkers everywhere. Inside the gate and out, they were as far they could see. None of the four had ever seen so many in one place before. There had to be thousands and every single one of them lay on the ground, motionless, dead.

"What is this?" Martha asked.

"I have no idea. I … I've never … I … don't understand what …" Al tried but couldn't find the right words. He couldn't imagine what could have done this.

Dale leaned forward. "Kevin isn't getting any better. We need to get what we came for. There'll be time to figure this out later."

"Yeah, you're right," Al agreed.

Slowly, they moved forward, off the road, and through the hole in fence through which they had made their escape years before. The crashed SUV was still there. However, the front windows on each side had been smashed and the occupants lay half in half out of the vehicle.

Al kept driving, maneuvering around the bodies as best he could. However, they covered the ground and the streets to the point that it proved to be a useless effort. Gradually, they all began to notice a commonality among the dead littering the area. All but a few had a large portion of their head cut away. The others had been decapitated. That at least explained how they had been killed but there was nothing to provide a clue about who or what could have done so much damage.

"There's the hospital," Martha said, pointing to the large building at the end of the street.

"Martha, where should we go?" Al asked.

"The pharmacy should be inside right next to the main entance."

Al pulled into the parking lot and paused for a moment to see if there were any walkers milling about. There were a few headless bodies on the front sidewalk but the area was otherwise clear. "Guess I should have known," he mumbled. He backed the truck up to the door so they could load it easily and make a quick getaway if they had to. "Chris, you take the wheel. I'm going in with Dale and Martha. If there's any trouble, blow the horn."

"Got it," Chris replied. "What if you have any trouble?"

Al smiled. "If anything happens, we'll signal you by running in fear for our lives and screaming Go! Go! Go!"

"Just make sure you come back."

The three exchanged worried looks. One of the panes in the sliding glass doors had been broken and the doors then opened from the inside. "It looks like someone's already been here," Dale observed.

"And if they're still around?" Martha added.

"We've come too far to turn back now. We'll have to just hope for the best," Al said and stepped inside. Usually, Al was good at hiding his apprehension but Dale knew his friend had to be bordering on scared when instead of his baton, he reached for the Gloc he always carried but had never used.

Inside, skylights provided enough illumination for them to see the large sign on the wall to their right that read, "PHARMACY". It hung over a customer service counter with two drug dispensing windows on either side.

Rolling steel shutters barred access over the counter or through the windows. Al's eyes wandered across the lobby. There didn't appear to be anything prowling about. "Looks clear. Martha, any ideas on how we're going to get inside?"

"There one entry point down the hall. The door has a cipher lock on it. There's a chance the combination is still the same as when I was last here."

"Assuming we get through the door, is there any other way out?" Dale asked.

"There's an emergency exit in back that leads to the outside."

"Okay, let's do this."

Martha led them to the door. The lock was a series of buttons arranged in a circle, numbered from one to nine. It was a mechanical lock designed to accept a sequence of numbers set by the Pharmaceuticals Operations Chief. She pressed the buttons 9-1-1 and turned the knob. The lock clicked and the door opened! Martha said a silent prayer of thanks for Chief Master Sergeant Phang's great sense of humor and poor sense of security.

Al rummaged through his backpack and handed Dale and Martha each a flashlight. "Dale, you go in with Martha, I'll stay here and cover the door."

Dale walked in first, Martha's back to his. In one hand he held his flashlight, in the other his 9mm. Systematically, he scanned the room but didn't see anything dangerous. "Time to go shopping, Martha."

She began racing up and down the rows of shelves, casting her light across sets of labels before moving on quickly to a different area. "Hey! Slow down! Stay close to me!" Dale hissed.

Finally, she found what she was looking for, a tall steel locker with a sign on one door that read, "MRSA – IV/A". She yanked open the doors and began pulling bags of fluid off the shelves. She inspected one, threw it aside, and grabbed another. This process continued until the fifth one she tried. In bold letters, "VANCOMYCIN" was printed across the front of the bag. A smile spread across her face. "Today must be my birthday. Jackpot!"

Dale shone his light on the bag. "Is this what we need?"

"Yes. If this doesn't do the trick, nothing will."

"Good. Let's grab all of it and get the hell out …"

Dale didn't get to finish the sentence. He was cut short by a figure that appeared suddenly out of the surrounding darkness and ran into him at running speed. Dale went hurtling head first into a set of shelves. He staggered for a moment and then slumped unconscious to the floor.

"Dale!" Martha screamed. Her flashlight danced wildly around the room looking for him. When she found him, he was on his back, eyes closed. Straddling him was a girl. Her skin was gray and drawn tight against her skull. Part of her right cheek was missing, exposing a mouth full of black, pitted teeth.

She wore a military uniform with only one stripe on the sleeve, the rank insignia for an Airman, the second lowest enlisted rank in the Air Force. Aside from her state of decay, she looked very young. She'd probably enlisted right out of high school.

Her yellow eyes turned from Dale to Martha. Forgetting Dale, she rose and charged at her new prize. Martha swung her flashlight and connected with the Airman's head. Without waiting to see if the blow had even knocked the creature off balance, Martha sprinted for the emergency exit. The moment her hand touched the door, the Airman ploughed into her and together they went tumbling outside into the rain.

The pistol Dale had given her went skidding across the pavement. Martha crawled after it but had to abandon the effort so she could twist herself onto her back in an attempt to fight off the walker which had climbed on top of her.

The Airman was small but strong and Martha was struggling to keep her teeth at bay. Unfortunately, Martha was winded and getting tired, something walkers never seemed to do. Inch by inch, the thing drew closer to Martha's throat until their faces were almost touching. Martha closed her eyes and braced herself for the end.

For just an instant, Martha felt the walker's teeth against her skin before its head snapped back and its grip on her went loose. Martha opened her eyes. Protruding from the front of her throat was the blade of a huge knife, so large that it almost took her head off. The Airman went flying back away from her and rolled across the ground before coming to a rest several feet away.

Martha's eyes wandered from the walker to the strange man who towered over her with the blood stained knife in his hand. She had no idea who he was but he had just saved her life. "Oh my god, thank you! Thank you so much!" she exclaimed as she started to get on her feet.

She had scarcely gotten to her knees when she heard a musical swishing sound drift through the air and felt the sting of an ice cold blade on the side her neck. The stranger had moved so fast that she didn't see him draw the sword from the scabbard on his back.

He looked down at her and growled, "Don't move!"


	10. A Stranger Among Us

**Author's Note:** Again, I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to review my work. Your feedback has been a real inspiration. With this chapter, I have slowed the pace a little bit. We're taking a breather because starting with the end of chapter 11, it is going to be a wild ride all the way to the end. I hope you all enjoy my latest offering. Please let me know what you think. With that, I give you A Stranger Among Us ...

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Al stormed into the pharmacy, gun at the ready. He moved his flashlight across the floor and along the shelves, looking for his companions. He found Dale on the floor, unconscious, but. apart from a cut on his forehead, he seemed unhurt. "Martha! Where are you? Martha!" he called into the darkness.

Outside, Martha could hear Al's muffled shouts. The emergency exit had closed behind her and she wondered how long it would take her friend to figure out she was no longer inside. She tried to remain perfectly still as the man slowly and deliberately circled her, not letting the blade deviate even a hair's width from its place against her skin.

"Show me your hands," he commanded.

"Huh?"

"Show me your hands!" He sheathed his knife and used his now free hand to grab her shoulder. His grip was viselike and Martha felt him apply a little more pressure to the sword as he eased it into place across her throat. She held her trembling hands out in front of her, palms up.

BLAM! The emergency exit door flew open and out into the rain Al came running. The sight of Martha alive sent a surge of relief rushing through him. The sensation, however, quickly gave way to surprise as his focus shifted to the man standing behind her. Al immediately trained his weapon on the stranger's head and readied himself to pull the trigger.

Yet, he didn't shoot. For what felt like a very long time, he and the stranger simply looked at each other. During his years of law enforcement, Al had been in standoffs before but never in a hostage situation or against anyone armed with a sword. Worst of all, the man was wearing sunglasses, making it impossible to search his eyes for any indications of his possible intentions.

Finally, Al broke the uneasy silence. "Are you alright Martha?" Martha looked at him but didn't dare speak for fear of agitating her captor.

"Answer him," the man said.

"Y-y-yes … yeah … yeah Al …I'm okay," she stammered.

"What do you want?" Al asked, returning his attention to the mysterious stranger.

"Just one more thing." He knelt down and leaned over Martha's shoulder. "Martha," he said softly, "turn your hands over."

She did as she was bade without resistance. Several seconds later, the sword drifted away from it menacing position and the hand that moments before had threatened to crush her shoulder now patted it gently. "That'll do, Martha. That'll do."

Martha craned her neck about and riveted her eyes on the stranger as she slowly crawled toward Al. Sensing her apprehension, the man dismissively waved his hand at her and said, "Go on. Go to your friend. I'm not going to do anything."

"It's alright. I've got him covered," Al said and frantically motioned her over to his side. Still wary, she continued to creep along the ground until, finally convinced she was a safe distance from the sword wielding man, sprang to her feet and sprinted to safety behind Al.

"Martha," Al began without looking at her, "go around to the front of the building and get Chris to help you get Dale out of there."

"What about you?"

"I'll be fine."

"But …"

"Just do it!"

She knew Al well enough to realize that further protest would be of no use. Without another word, she took off and left Al alone with this being who, despite his having saved her, she regarded as far more dangerous than the walker he'd just killed.

Now without Martha as a distraction, Al took the time to scrutinize the curious man before him. He wore a long, black duster coat which, like his boots and the rest of his clothing, was worn, faded, and blood spattered. His dark hair and sunglasses stood out in sharp contrast to his pale, clean shaven skin. As the wind billowed and whipped his coat about, Al looked intently but couldn't discern any weapons on his person other than the sword in his hand and the knife on his belt.

In one fast, smooth motion he returned the sword to its place on his back. He held his gloved hands out in front of him and tilted his head toward Al. Though he didn't say anything, his meaning was clear. He'd put away his weapon and now it was Al's turn. Though he lowered his gun, he wasn't about to holster it.

"What the hell was that?!" Al suddenly screamed.

"What?"

"What you did to Martha. That's what!"

"I had to be sure."

"Sure of what?"

"That she hadn't been bitten."

"Did it ever occur to you that you could have asked?"

"That thought did cross my mind, but … people have lied to me before and I just wound up having to kill them anyway."

"Yeah," Al glanced over at the dead Airman a few feet away, "I … uh … yeah … I guess that … anyway, you still saved Martha. She's a good friend and our doctor." He moved toward the stranger with some trepidation but with his hand extended.

If the man noticed the gesture, he gave no sign. "Well, congratulations on getting your doctor back. Now, take whatever it is you came here to get. Take it and go crawl back into whatever hole you're hiding in," he said and turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Al called out. Up until now, his fight-or-flight response had largely controlled his actions but the adrenaline rush was beginning to wear off and he was finally starting to appreciate what was in front of him, a survivor. "Who are you?"

"Nobody," he replied without looking back.

"Please, will you …?" Al ran up behind him and reached out to grab his arm but was stopped short. He heard no sound and had barely perceived any movement. Yet, there he was with the point of a sword against his chest.

"Al," his voice was flat and perfectly calm, "our business … is concluded. Shove off!" Again, he sheathed his sword and stormed away.

"We came here for anti-biotics!" There was no response. Desperately, Al tried to think of the right thing he could say to get him to talk to him. Only one thing came to mind. "They're for a little boy! He's dying!"

Apparently, Al got his attention because the man stopped dead in his tracks and looked back over his shoulder. "Boy?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What do you want from me?"

Al approached with his hands held up, trying to make clear that he had no hostile intentions. "My name is Al Parker. There's a group of us that live in a gated community about thirty miles from here."

"You're not answering my question."

"Okay, okay. There's a boy there who is very sick. We came here looking for anti-biotics in the hospital. He'll die without them. Hell, he might die anyway. We've lost two of our people already and I don't know what it'll do to everybody if we lose this boy."

"And this has what to do with me?"

Al took a step closer. "Ever since we got where we're holding up, we haven't seen another living person outside of our lot and we've been there for four years!"

"I don't suppose this is building up to a point?"

"Come back with us," Al blurted out, throwing caution aside. "If I could … if I could bring back someone from the outside, you don't know what kind of hope that would give those people."

"Hope for what?"

"I don't know. I really don't know but I'm trying here. You saved my friend's life. I have no right to ask anything of you. Still, I'm asking … I'm begging you, please come back with us. If you don't want to stay, fine. I'll give you all the supplies you can carry in exchange for your time and you can be on your way. Please, just … let everyone see that there's something out here other than death."

"How old is this boy?"

"Six."

"What's his name?"

"Kevin."

Tensely, Al waited as the man looked up at the sky. He wished he could somehow see what was going on in his mind. At last, he looked down, furrowed his brow, and shook his head. Al's heart sank until he said, "I'm too nice. Alright, I'll go."

Al took in a deep breath. "Thank you. Oh my god, thank you so much." By this time, Al was nearly in tears. "Um …I suppose that now would be as good a time as any to ask your name."

"John."

"John …?"

"Yeah …John. That'll do for now."

"Okay, John. Fair enough." Al was in no mood or position to press his luck. "Let's get out of here."

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Dale's head was pounding and the voice telling him to get up sounded like it was screaming in his ear. "Come on, Dale. We have to go," Chris urged as he struggled to get him to his feet.

"Where's Martha?" Dale mumbled.

"I'm right here. You'll be fine after you walk around a little bit." She reached for Dale but Chris waved her off.

"I can get him. You grab what you need for Kevin and let's go. I don't want to be around here one second more than we have to." Martha nodded and dashed off to collect the bags of vancomycin and equipment to run an IV.

Chris draped Dale's arm over his shoulder and led him outside. The sudden change in light was blinding but the rain on his face was refreshing and the cool air felt good in his lungs. He pulled away from Chris, walked over to the truck, and leaned against it. "Go help Martha get the stuff. I'll be okay out here."

"You sure?" Chris asked.

Dale felt to be certain he still had his pistol before answering, "Yeah … yeah. It's just a bump on the head. I'll shake it off in a few minutes. Go."

"Okay, I won't be long."

For a few minutes, Dale slowly paced back and forth, rubbing his temples. By now he was feeling much better. His vision had cleared and the intense throbbing in his head had eased to a dull ache.

Chris soon reappeared at the door carrying a box. "Dale, come here."

"Where's Martha?"

"She's busy clearing the place out. She said we might as well get everything we can while we're here. I went ahead and brought this out. She's filling up a bunch of bags right now."

Dale bit down hard on his lip, trying to contain his frustration. He wasn't unsympathetic to Martha's desire to take advantage of the wealth of resources in the pharmacy but time was running short for Kevin. "Well, just … just tell her to hurry up. You drop the stuff at the door and I'll load it in the back of the truck," he said as he raced to lower the tail gate and raise the camper shell door. He retrieved the box, which contained the antibiotics, and carefully placed it in the truck bed.

"Another load!" Chris yelled as he dropped four trash bags filled with sundry items at the door before vanishing back into the darkness of the hospital. Dale grabbed two bags in each hand and slung them over his shoulders. He turned to go back to the truck and came face-to-face with John.

Dale uttered a loud cry, dropped the bags, and nearly fell over them as he scrambled backwards while simultaneously fumbling for his weapon. Just as he raised the pistol level with John's head, Al jumped in between them.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Al yelled, his hands held up, creating a buffer between Dale and John. "Dale, it's okay! It's alright! Put it away! Put it away! Dale … put the gun away!"

Dale looked repeatedly from John to Al as if he was trying to decide whether or not what he was seeing was actually real. "Al?" he asked sheepishly.

Al's tone shifted from commanding to soothing. "It's alright. Just take it easy. This guy's a survivor. He's okay. You can put your weapon away. You're not going to need it."

"A survivor?"

A smile, rare for Al, betrayed his excitement.

Dale gently nodded his head. "Alright … alright …if you say so," he said as he eased his finger off the trigger and returned the pistol to his belt.

Moments later, Chris came charging outside, a Berretta in each hand, and yelling, "Dale! I'm coming!" On seeing John, he came to an abrupt halt. His mind raced for something to say but all he could do was stand there and gawk at the aberrant figure over his gun sights.

"Are all of you this trigger happy, Al?" John drawled.

"Enough!" Al yelled. "Everyone just calm down! Chris, put the guns down. Nobody here wants to hurt anybody, right?"

Chris was hesitant, but ultimately holstered his weapons. He glared suspiciously at John momentarily before turning to Al. "Well, I can't wait to hear all about our new friend here."

"Later." Al looked about. "Where's Martha?"

"She's inside," Chris replied.

"Do we have what we need?" 

"Uh-huh, she's just rounding up some extra stuff."

"Chris, you and I'll go speed Martha along, Dale, you get the rest of the stuff out here in the truck and John … you … you … just standby."

Inside, Al and Chris found a number of trash bags piled outside the pharmacy. As they approached the door, Martha stepped into the hallway. When she saw Al, she ran to him.

"You're okay," she exclaimed as she threw her arms around him.

"I'm fine. Are you ready to go?"

"I'm ready. I took the time to gather up some extra supplies but I've pretty much got all that's worth taking."

"Good, let's grab it and go."

"Al?"

"What?"

"What happened to that man? Where is he?"

"Don't worry about him. I've dealt with the situation," he replied as he and Chris quickly collected the bags and made for the front door.

"Dealt with it? What does that mean?" He didn't answer. "What does that mean?" she asked again as she trailed him outside. "Al, what do you mean? … Why won't you …" The words caught in her throat as she stepped out into the open and saw John standing next to the truck.

For a while, Martha stood at a distance and glowered at John before storming over to Al. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him aside, away from the others. "What is he doing here?"

Al closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew this wasn't going to go well. "He's going to East Lake with us."

The color drained from Martha's face and her eyes widened in disbelief. Her look of consternation, however, was quickly replaced by one of fury. "Have you gone completely out of your disease infested mind?!" she hissed. "He tried to kill me!"

"No, he didn't! Believe me, he didn't need to try. If he'd wanted you dead, that's what you'd be right now."

He was right but Martha didn't want to admit it. She folded her arms across her chest, pursed her lips, and fixed her eyes on the ground. "Why are you doing this?"

"Martha, we've been friends for years and I've never asked you this but, do you trust me?"

"Oh come on! What does that have to do with … "

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she answered without looking up.

"Good, then trust me now." Al turned back to the rest of the group. "Alright, I'll drive. Martha, you're in the front with me. Chris and Dale have the back seat. John, you can …"

"I'll ride in truck bed." In spite of his sunglasses, Martha could feel his stare resting squarely on her. "I think that'll make everyone a lot more … comfortable."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The ride back to East Lake was quiet. The rain had all but stopped and the number of dead they encountered on the road was negligible. All of them stole furtive glances at John in the rearview mirror but no one spoke until they were about five miles from home.

"Are you still mad at me?" Al asked. Martha didn't answer or even look at him. "I'll take that as a yes."

"No, I'm not mad, just tired. I'm sorry I was so hateful earlier. I didn't mean to be. Still friends?"

Al smiled. "Friends."

"Right now, all I want to do is get back to Michelle's and start a drip on Kevin." She closed her eyes and rested her head against the cool glass of the window. "It's sure been one heck of a day."

"Well, it's a long way from over," Al said and slowed the truck to a stop. They had just topped the hill and East Lake's wall had come into view, along with an abnormally large crowd of walkers about two hundred yards from the gate.

Al counted twelve in and along the road and another four just coming out of the trees. This many walkers together was a rare sight this far from town but there they were. Before he could even say anything, Chris and Dale were already getting their guns ready. "Don't worry about shooting them now. I've got plenty of room to drive around them. When we get through the gate, jump out and be ready to put them down."

From the gate, Karen stood watch. Typically, when Dale would go out, she'd take over for whoever was scheduled for guard duty. She liked knowing the moment her husband was back. For the past hour, she'd been looking at her watch every few minutes as though that would somehow make Dale and the others get back sooner. Nervously, she watched the truck moving in her direction and all the walkers around it. Though she was armed, she wasn't nearly enough of a marksman to score headshots on walkers so far away.

Carefully, Al rolled through the gaggle, trying to snake his way around them. Despite his best efforts to avoid them, he bumped into several as they converged on the vehicle. However, he soon pulled clear of them and as he neared the gate, Karen swung it open.

Al knew the dead would be right behind them and allowed himself one last look in the rearview to see how much distance he had on them. He looked just in time to see the camper shell door open and John go diving out the back onto the ground.

Al stopped the truck inside the gate and everyone leapt out as John sprang to his feet. "What are you doing?" Al screamed.

"I'll be right there!" John yelled without even a backward glance.

The five watched, transfixed, as John sauntered into the enemy's midst, his knife and sword drawn. The first walker unfortunate enough to cross his path received the knife in the side of it's neck, all the way up to the hilt. Almost simultaneously, he swung his sword at the next one in striking distance and neatly cleaved the top of its head. With each stroke, the blade moved so fast that it filled the air with a faint sound not unlike someone gently stoking a harp. On went the bloody spectacle as he easily fell one after another with a gruesome, yet strangely poetic, graceful ease until only one remained.

The wide eyed creature was worn and withered. By all appearances, he had been very old when he died. The old man stopped for a few seconds to look at John but then shambled on toward the gate, seemingly unconcerned about the man who had just laid all his kindred low.

John allowed him to shuffle past before slicing his sword through the air once more. Yet, the decrepit thing staggered on. It seemed John had missed his target entirely until after a few more steps, the old man's head tumbled from his shoulders and his body collapsed.

"Daaamn," Chris breathed.

"Is that why you brought him here?" Martha asked Al in a timorous whisper.

"No … but it sure as hell didn't hurt."

Nonchalantly, John wiped the knife on his pants leg. From one of his pockets, he took a piece of cloth which he used to clean the blood from his sword before returning it to its sheath. He walked up to Al. "Where's the boy?"

"That was … amazing! I … I've never seen anything …"

"Where is the boy?" John reiterated, stressing every syllable. His impatience was unmistakable.

"Oh … yeah …let's uh …Martha, get back in the truck and we'll drive over so you can get started." Much to Al's chagrin, John's mesmeric display of swordsmanship had caused thoughts of Kevin to momentarily retreat from his mind.

"By all means, lead on," John sneered as he climbed back into the truck bed.

Al motioned Chris and Dale over to his side. "Guys, would you make sure this mess gets cleaned up?" he asked, pointing the bodies strewn just outside the gate.

"Not a problem," Dale answered.

"Oh, sweetie," Karen intoned as she hugged Dale. "What happened to your head?"

"It's nothing. I'll tell you all about it later."

"You promise you're alright?"

"Yes."

"Well, who is that man?"

"We'll talk about that later too."

"Okay." She pulled him close and kissed him. "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

"I guess you two better get started on … well, you know," Karen said while averting her eyes from the carnage not fifty feet away.

Dale waited until the truck was out of sight before asking Chris, "What do you think?"

"You mean John?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know yet. You?"

"Me neither." Dale's eyes roamed across the dead bodies. "I just hope he never gets pissed off at me."

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Martha waited until John was out of the back before leaving her seat to get the box of antibiotics. "Do you need any help with that?" John asked as she hoisted the box over the tail gate.

"No," she replied curtly and hastily made her way inside.

"Don't worry. I'll talk to her," Al said.

John shook his head. "Don't bother."

"Anyway, it's getting late. We have lots of room around here. As a matter of fact, there's no one living in the second house over from Michelle's. You can stay there for the night. None of the unoccupied places are locked so you won't need a key. If you want, I could show you one of the other empty houses. Their all furnished so …"

"It'll do fine. Show me the boy."

Al lead John inside and up the stairs to Kevin's room. John stood outside the door and watched as Martha located a vein. Kevin's arm were small but he was so pale that his blood vessels were easy to spot. Just as she finished inserting the needle and taping it into place, he walked into the room and up to Kevin's bedside.

Michelle, who had been focused on Kevin, noticed John for the first time. Astounded and perplexed by this new arrival, she shot Al a quizzical look. He held a finger to his lips, motioned for her to keep her seat, and mouthed the words, "It's okay."

John sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the unconscious child in silence for several moments. "How long has he been like this?" he asked no one in particular.

"About a week," Michelle replied timidly.

"Open his eyes."

"Why?"

"Just open his eyes."

Michelle leaned across her son and pulled his eyelids apart. His irises were dark blue and his pupils were barely discernable dots. "That's what I thought," John said.

"What, what did you think?" Michelle pleaded, a hint of panic in her voice.

John rose and walked around to the other side of the bed where Michelle sat. "You're his mother?" She nodded. He leaned in close and whispered in her ear. As he spoke, her eyes grew wide and her mouth gaped open.

"Are you sure?" she choked out as tears welled up in her eyes.

"I promise."

Michelle rocked back and forth in her seat, dropped her head in her hands, and began to sob violently. She took Kevin's hand in hers, held it against her face, and muttered over and over, "My baby, my baby."

"Well, I'm calling it a day," John said as he brushed past Al, down the stairs, and outside.

"Michelle, what is it?" Martha asked. "Michelle, what did he …"

"You stay here. I'll go find out what this is all about," Al interrupted. When he caught up with him, John was already ascending the porch steps of the house Al had pointed out to him.

"Hey! Wait up! Wait just a minute! Damn it, will you wait just a second?"

"What?"

"What was that all about?"

"I assume you mean that woman."

"Her name is Michelle and you're damn right that's what I mean. She's freaking out up there. What did you say to her?"

"I told her the truth."

"The truth? Which is …?"

"Her son isn't going to die."

"Hold it, hold it … there's no way I could have heard you right. What did you say to her?"

"No, you heard me correctly. He's not going to die." John spoke with the calm assuredness of someone stating the self apparent.

Gradually, Al closed the distance between them until he was only inches from John's face. "Are you deranged? Are you sick?" Al said through clenched teeth. "My god!! Do you have any idea what you've done? Ever since Kevin got sick, we've tried hard to not crush Michelle's hope but we've also tried to keep her grounded in the reality of the situation and you haven't helped!"

"Al, you need to calm yourself."

"Maybe … maybe this is partly my fault," Al continued. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough about the gravity of what's going on in there. But in my defense, I don't see how I could have expected that anyone would do something as asinine as what you just did!"

John arched an eyebrow. "He'll live." With these words, he went inside and closed the door behind him.

The last thing Al heard was the sound of the deadbolt sliding into place. The euphoria that finding a survivor had brought on had rapidly waned, leaving Al with only a nagging suspicion that bringing John to East Lake might not have been as good an idea as he first supposed.


	11. Behind the Glasses

May 2nd, 1997, 9:32 A.M.

"Is he even in there?" Dale thought as he knocked for the fifth time. He peered in the windows but could see nothing through the curtains and though he listened intently, he couldn't hear any sound coming from inside the house. He readied himself to knock one last time when the door suddenly swung open.

"What do you want?" John asked contemptuously.

"Man, I was beginning to think you were gone or you couldn't hear me."

"No, I could hear you. I was just ignoring you. What do you want?"

"Michelle would really like to see you," Dale replied, seemingly unfazed by John's brusque manner. "It's Kevin. He's awake."

John looked past Dale to the crowd of people assembled on the street. "Do they have to do that?" he asked.

Dale looked back over his shoulder. "What?"

"That!"

"They're just standing there."

"That's what I mean. It's like they're waiting for a parade."

"They're waiting for you."

"You can't be serious."

"Everyone's excited. Nobody's been seen outside of these walls for years. You're a first. They haven't even laid eyes on you and you're already a celebrity."

"I suppose there's no accounting for taste," John grumbled as he stepped outside. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he scrutinized the crowd. "Well, I guess the gauntlet's just going to have to be run."

"Uh … before we go over to Michelle's, there's …" Dale faltered for a moment as he tried to find the right words. "It's just that … I know I'm probably being rude but I have to ask. Those sunglasses … do you wear them all the time?"

"Yes, I do."

"Even at night?" Dale asked, a smile creeping across his face.

John's body tensed and he ground his teeth together. "Yes, Dale," he growled. "I wear my sunglasses at night." The agonizingly bad attempt at humor was not lost on him.

As John drew near, the crowd wasted no time descending on him. He was assailed by a barrage of people wanting to shake his hand or pat him on the back. All the while, overlapping questions filled the air. Who are you? How did you survive? Where did you come from? Are there any other survivors? Are you going to stay? Most were animated but some simply stood by and gazed at him amazedly. Others, overcome with emotion, were reduced to tears.

"Please … everyone please! We're on our way to see Kevin!" Dale shouted over the bedlam. "There'll be plenty of time for questions and introductions later."

Reluctantly, the teaming mass made way for Dale and John. Still, they trailed close behind, all the way to Michelle's front door and watched as the two vanished inside. Before going upstairs, John looked through the peephole. A few people had left but the majority of them remained, anxiously waiting for another chance to see the strange newcomer.

In Kevin's room, the scene was much different than it had been the evening before. Martha slept peacefully in a chair by the bed, two empty IV bags on the floor near her feet. A smiling Michelle sat opposite, spoon feeding soup to her son. The boy still looked pale and weak but far better than he had yesterday. The only thing that remained the same was Al, who stood in the corner, arms folded across his chest, looking as stoic as ever.

Dale and John slinked in quietly through the open door. When Michelle caught sight of them, she placed the soup bowl on the nightstand next to her chair and said to Kevin, "I'll be right back." She raced around the bed, across the room and flung her arms around John's neck.

He tried to pry her arms loose but she held on tight, seemingly oblivious to his attempts to free himself. "Thank you … oh dear god … thank you so much," she sobbed. "I'll never forget you for this!"

"I didn't do anything," he protested.

"Martha told me last night how you saved her from one of … one of _them_," she said, barely above a whisper. Her eyes moved furtively about the room as if daring to speak about walkers would make one somehow materialize. "If you hadn't saved her, my son would have died." Tears erupted from her eyes afresh and she hugged John again.

"Please … please … uh … could you …you're welcome," John conceded as she finally released him.

John gently pushed past Michelle and sat on the bed next to Kevin. "How are you?"

"Okay," Kevin replied hoarsely. His breathing was a little ragged but it was deep and steady, a substantial improvement.

"Give it a few days. You'll be fine," John said reassuringly and softly patted the side of Kevin's face. "I'll look back in on you soon." John rose and made for the door but Michelle ran after him and stepped into his path.

"Wait. Before you go, could I talk to you for just a second?"

"What is it?"

"Could we talk outside?" she asked in a hushed tone. John appeared hesitant but finally nodded his assent and stepped around her into the hallway. Michelle soon followed and closed the door behind her. "I don't want Kevin to hear," she explained.

"Hmm … curious indeed."

"John, there's something I've really been wanting to ask you."

"Seems to be a trend this morning," John said, alluding to Dale's question earlier.

"What?"

"Nothing. What do you want to ask?"

"Yesterday, when you told me that Kevin wasn't going to die … how … how did you know?"

"Well, it was really just a lucky guess. I have no doubt that Martha's a competent …"

"You didn't guess." Her countenance took on a steely quality that seemed alien to the mother that had been caring so tenderly for her sick child just a few minutes before. "You didn't guess and you weren't just trying to make me feel better. You knew. How?"

"This is really …"

"Please … please tell me."

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes, I do."

"I can see it. I can see death coming. I can feel it, sense it. I guess that's what happens when you see as many people die as I have. It becomes intuitive. So many painful, slow, torturous, lonely deaths."

His glasses made it hard to tell, but to Michelle it seemed he was looking through her. He sounded less like he was talking to her and more like he was thinking aloud. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you such a …"

"It's not something you know. At least not as a matter of fact," he continued as if she hadn't said anything. "You just … you just know when it's there. It's indefinable but you know that you know." His focus shifted back to her. "What I don't know is how else I can answer your question."

Michelle's expression softened. She reached out and placed a hand on his arm. John instantly pulled away just far enough to be beyond her reach. She pretended to not notice his aversion to physical contact.

"I'm sorry," he muttered but still kept his distance.

"It's okay, really. I'm the one who's sorry. I don't know what's happened to you, but I know it had to be bad, and I'm sorry. If it means anything to you, my son is alive because of you and I'm glad you're here. I don't have much, but everything I do have is yours. Thank you for my son's life."

"I …should go. I'll come back later." He averted his gaze from her face. "I …I …"

"What?"

"Later. I'll come back later."

Michelle smiled faintly but sincerely. "We'll be here." She reached for the door just as it opened, and Al stepped into the hall.

"Kevin's asleep again. He looks like he's doing okay. There are some things I need to do so I'm going to take off. I'll check back in a few hours or so." Though he spoke to Michelle, Al's eyes were on John.

"Thanks, Al."

"You heading out John?"

"Yes, for now."

"I'll walk with you."

"If it makes you happy." His tone had soured again.

The two exited the front door and were met by the waiting crowd. Al scanned their eager faces for several moments before turning to John. "Word travels fast doesn't it? I came over at six this morning, and there were already a lot of people waiting … for you. So, what do you want to do about your fan club? You can't duck them forever."

"And I though Offutt was bad," John mumbled.

"Good grief. If that's how you fell about it, I'll deal with them." Al stepped off the porch and approached the group with his hands held high. "Everybody! Everybody listen up for just a second. I want to …"

"I'm gratified," John interrupted. His voice was soft and low but commanding. A collective gasp emanated from the group. Everyone, including Al, clustered around the porch where he stood. Anticipation hung heavy in the air as they waited for him to speak again.

"I'm gratified to see all of you," he continued. "I've traveled for a long time now, and I can tell you that in my experience survivors are … few and the dead are many. Whether you realize it or not, each of you is a rare gem. I'd go so far as to say that this many of you in one place together is something of a phenomenon. I commend you for your perseverance. However, if you would all be so kind as to excuse me, I'd very much like a little peace and quiet for the time being… alone."

There immediately followed a flurry of murmurings. Some of those gathered congratulated themselves on their survival of an apocalyptic plague. An overwhelming sense of despair coursed through others. What John said hit hard. With gut wrenching brevity and a disturbing lack of emotion, he had encapsulated the gravity and extent of the disaster that had befallen the world.

Everyone backed quietly away, giving John ample room to walk by. A great deal of the enthusiasm had subsided. There were no more questions, and no one made an effort to touch him. All they did was watch him away to the solitude of the house from which they had earlier awaited his appearance.

"Okay, let's get back to the things we all need to be doing," Al announced. "John is … very tired. Let's give him a chance to get some rest for now but just so you know, I appreciate everyone coming out to make him feel welcome."

Gradually, the crowd dissipated, and Al started to head for home when a familiar voice called to him, "Good morning!"

He turned and saw Jennifer approaching. With her were Elizabeth, Rose, and Sarah. All were dressed in what had to be the nicest clothes they had, and Al couldn't recall a time when he'd seen any of them looking more radiant.

"Morning, Jennifer. What's got you all dressed up?"

"Chris told us about John. We wanted to do something for such a special occasion so the girls and I made him a pie."

Al looked at the foil-covered pan Jennifer held in her hands. "Wow! You went to all that trouble?" he asked, clearly impressed.

Most cooking these days was done over an open fire or on a flame heated metal plate. Dale had rigged a number of stoves to run on portable propane tanks but supplies were limited and rarely used. All-in-all, their humble offering represented a genuine sacrifice of time, effort, and resources. "That's him right there." Al pointed to the retreating figure. "Come on, we'll catch him before he goes inside. Hey, John! John!"

John spun around with a clenched fist raised. "Al," he began, his voice tinged with exasperation. Yet, he fell silent when he became aware of Jennifer and the girls. He quickly regained his composure and softly asked, "What do you … what can I do for you?"

Al glanced at his friends before responding. Though John's agitation had been evident to him, neither Jennifer nor the girls gave any indication they had noticed. "The ladies have a little something they'd like you to have."

"Hi, I'm Jennifer Driscoll, Chris's wife. You met him yesterday. These are my girls, Elizabeth, Rose, and Sarah," she said, pointing to each in turn. "We were so excited to hear about you last night that we spent the entire morning making you this apple pie as our way of saying hello and that we hope you'll stay with us."

John stared at the proffered food. Slowly, he reached out and took it. He could feel its warmth through his gloves. A half-dozen snide remarks came to mind but instead he simply said, "Thank you. Thank you very much." The words were forced and reeked of insincerity, but only Al seemed to discern this fact. Jennifer smiled, and the girls clapped and giggled, elated by what they saw as a resounding success.

"My dad said you kick ass!" Rose blurted out.

"Rose, that's no way to talk to the gentlemen! I'm so sorry," Jennifer apologized.

"Did you really kill all the walkers at Offutt?" Rose asked, undeterred.

"Rose!"

John dismissed Jennifer's objection with a wave of his hand. "It's all right." He took a step closer to Rose. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"So young. So outspoken. In answer to your question, yes. I did kill all the walkers your father saw at Offutt. I went non-stop for three days, and when I was finished, all that I left behind was blood and death. That's all I ever leave behind me."

"Really?" she asked.

"Really. I didn't even bother to keep count."

"Wow!"

An awkward silence followed that was finally shattered by Jennifer. "I guess we had better go. We won't take up any more of your time. It was very nice to meet you."

Al waited until they were out of earshot before speaking. "Not as tactful as I would have been, but Rose was certainly impressed, along with a lot of others. You made a lot of people happy today, or at the very least more optimistic. I have to admit, I was having my doubts for a minute there. I was beginning to think I made a mistake bringing you here."

"Well you can stop thinking because you did!" John spat. "But not as big a mistake as I made coming here! But you don't have to worry, Al. This is a mistake we'll both live to regret."

"What the hell is your problem, John?! I mean … I've known you less than twenty-four hours, and I think I can honestly say that you are the most pissed off person I've ever met! What is it? Is this whole end of the world as we know it thing proving problematic for you? In case you haven't noticed, it's happening to all of us! Maybe you lost someone. Did you? I hate to be the one to tell you but lots of people here have. So what is it?" Al paused to give John a chance to say something but he remained silent. "Why did you even come here?"

"I came because of the boy. I thought that if I could … maybe if …it doesn't matter. As soon as Kevin is well I'll leave." John turned his back to Al. "It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. It's just the way it is. I'm afraid I don't have what it takes to be around … people." With these words, he strode into the house and locked the door.

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May 3rd, 1997, 6:34 A.M.

Martha had intended to stay the entire night at Michelle's. However, Kevin's improvement was exceeding any expectations she'd dared to entertain. After a great deal of insistence on Michelle's part, Martha set up a fresh IV for Kevin and went home to get cleaned up and sleep in her own bed, leaving Michelle with her promise she would be back early.

Everything about the house was quiet when Martha approached so she was taken aback when the front door opened before she even got to the steps. Michelle greeted her with an exuberant, "Good morning! Come on in! Come on in!"

"You seem … happy. Was everything okay last night?"

"Everything was great," Michelle replied. "I was actually able to sleep, and Kevin is doing much, much better."

"Is he asleep right now?"

"No, he's been awake for a couple of hours. I guess that's to be expected since he slept most of yesterday and last night. I don't think I would have slept as well if it hadn't been for John."

"John? I don't understand."

"John came over not long after you left yesterday, and he's been here ever since. He sat with Kevin all night so I could sleep. He's upstairs playing with him right now."

"John? Are we talking about John from Offutt? Sunglasses, sword, bloody clothes?"

Michelle gave her friend an indignant look. "I know that he can be a bit … morose, but he's a real sweetheart with Kevin. Come with me, and I'll show you."

The two moved stealthily up the stairs. The door to Kevin's room was open just enough to let them see Kevin and John sitting cross legged on the bed staring contemplatively at the cards they each held.

"Do you have any 9's?" Kevin asked.

"You're really going to take my last card?"

"Yep."

"Here." John threw the card down on the bed. "I never was any good at card games anyway."

"Yeah! I win!"

John scooped up the cards and began to shuffle them. "What do you want to play now?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I know a game we can …"

"I like your glasses."

"Thank you."

"Do you wear them because you can't see?"

"No. They aren't those kind of glasses. I see everything. Sometimes, I see too much."

"I wish I had glasses like yours."

"Don't. Believe me, they're not nearly as nice as you think."

"Then why do you wear them?"

"Do you always talk this much?"

"Yep, I love to talk. Sometimes my mom says …"

"I'm going to show you a new card game, one I might actually be able to win. I'm just not having any luck here with go-fish."

Martha watched in fascination. Despite having been her rescuer, she thought of John as little more than a curt, short-tempered, cold-blooded boor. However, the man now sitting across from Kevin, by all appearances, was kind, patient, and deferential.

"What is that thing on your back?" Kevin asked.

"What thing?"

"That." Kevin pointed to the hilt of John's sword.

"Oh, you mean this." John unslung the weapon from across his chest and placed it on the bed in front of him. He pulled the blade about six inches from the scabbard so Kevin could see it.

"Whoa! That's a really big knife!" Kevin exclaimed.

"It's not a knife. It's a sword."

"Can I touch it?"

"Ehh … I don't …"

"Please?"

"Well, alright. You can touch it here." John pointed to the broad side of the blade. "Don't touch this side facing me because it's very, very sharp."

Kevin moved his finger tips back and forth across the smooth metal. "It feels cold."

"It is cold."

"Where did you get it?"

"My father. It belonged to him, and he passed it down to me."

"Where did he get it?"

"A long time ago, my father fought in a war in the Pacific Ocean."

"Where's that?"

"It's a long, long way from here. My father met a man there who gave him this sword." John's story wasn't entirely true but he saw no reason to tell how his father took the sword from a dead Japanese officer. "A lot of men who fought in that war brought swords home. Most of them were cheap and mass produced. My dad, however, was lucky. This particular sword was made by hand. It's very strong and very old. How old do you think it is?"

"Um … I guess … I guess it's … I don't know."

John smiled. "It's about three hundred years old, give or take a little."

"No way!"

"Yeah! You see the leather wrapping around the handle?"

"Uh-huh."

"When I was a boy, my dad told me that it was dragon skin."

"Wow! Is it?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"What are those?" Kevin pointed to marks etched into the blade close to its base.

"It's kanji."

"What's kanji?"

"It's Japanese writing. You see, when you and I write, we use English letters to make words. Japanese writing uses characters like this one that stand for words."

"What does it mean?"

John's smile melted away and he slid the blade back into its sheath. "I don't know."

"Are you sure?"

"I said I don't know!"

Kevin recoiled from the sudden outburst. "I'm … I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, no. I'm sorry, Kevin," John said, trying to recover. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. It wasn't you. I promise it wasn't you. I … I don't … feel well. I've got a really bad headache." He placed a hand on the crestfallen boy's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. It's not your fault I was being a chunk head. Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah." Kevin wiped his eyes with his pajama sleeve.

"Promise?" John's smile returned and he poked him in the ribs repeatedly.

"Yes! Yes! That tickles!" Kevin squealed.

"Good." John returned the sword to its place across his back. "I'm going to go lie down for awhile. Besides, I bet your mom wants to come in. She and Martha have been standing outside your room for a while now." John slid off the bed and stepped over to the door, "I can hear everything too, ladies."

A perplexed looking Michelle and Martha walked in. "You're busted!" Kevin laughed. "John can hear everything! He knew you were there!"

"So I see. That's amazing," Michelle said. "Do you have to go right now, John?"

"Yes, I …" John's knees suddenly buckled. He almost collapsed to the floor but recovered at the last second and staggered about dizzily. He looked from Kevin to Michelle to Martha as he backed out of the room and into the hall. The look on his face was one of a man panic stricken. "I … need to …I …" He grimaced and put a hand on his forehead, obviously in pain.

"Are you okay?" Michelle asked.

"I'm fine."

"But … you're shaking. Oh my god! You're nose is bleeding! Martha, he needs help!"

"I don't need any help. I just need all of you to back off! I'll be fine!", he yelled and stormed out of the house unceremoniously.

"Is John okay?" Kevin asked.

"He's fine," Michelle answered, putting on her best smile. "He's just doesn't' feel good right now. Martha will go take a look at him and make sure." Michelle looked imploringly to her friend and mouthed the word, "Please."

"Yeah …sure, I'll go see John just as soon as I get your temperature and change your IV."

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Ever since their encounter at Offutt, Martha had gone out of her way to avoid contact with John. Now she'd been standing outside his front door for the past ten minutes, trying to work up the nerve to go in and see him. This was the last place she wanted to be, but she was determined to keep her promise to Michelle. She swallowed nervously, closed her eyes and knocked.

Surprisingly, the door creaked open. Martha waited with bated breath, half expecting John to come lunging out at her any second. After a couple of minutes though, she concluded he must have not heard her. She pushed the door open a little more and stuck her head inside. "John?" Again, there was no response. By now, she was feeling somewhat emboldened and walked on in.

A thick layer of dust covered everything. The air was musty and a few spider webs bedecked the banister and inner doorways. There was nothing about the place to indicate that anyone had been there recently other than a few drops of blood that ran along the floor and up the stairs.

She listened intently but there was only silence. "John? Are you in here?" As if in answer to her call, there was a loud thud from the second floor. "Is that you, John?" There was no reply. Slowly, she ascended the stairs, stopping for a few seconds on each step to listen until she reached the top. "John?"

"Go away!" It was John's voice and it was coming from the room at the end of the hall to her left.

"I told Michelle I'd see if you were okay."

"Tell her I'm fine. Just please … go away!"

Martha crept forward until she was close enough to press her ear against the door. The sound of hacking and gagging on the other side was unmistakable and sickening. She tried the knob, and it turned easily in her hand. "John?" She could hear him moving but he said nothing. "You can do this," she told herself. "John, I'm coming in." She swallowed nervously and shoved the door open.

The room was as unkempt as the rest of the house. John's coat was draped neatly across the back of a chair in the far right corner. His sword rested on a nearby dresser. At the foot of the bed was John himself. He was on his knees, trembling violently and clutching his head with both hands. Thick, dark blood dripped from his nose and had formed a small puddle on the floor in front of him.

"John!" Martha exclaimed and ran to his side. "Oh my god, you are sick!"

"Don't touch me!" he screamed and waved her off.

"But, something is wrong with you! I need to …"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed and pushed her away hard. "You get away from me, or I'll finish what that little bitch at the hospital started!"

"Please let me help you. I can …"

Without warning, John leapt up and charged. He wrapped his hands around her throat and slammed her into the wall hard enough to break the mirror hanging there. She struggled to break free but he was far too strong. He snarled savagely and sniffed at the air. "So … hungry," he whispered gratingly.

"Please … don't …do …this." Martha choked out each word in between frantic gasps for air.

John moved closer and closer to her face until his teeth rested on her cheek. He started to bite down on her but with the same abruptness with which he attacked her, he pulled his head back and released his grip on her neck. He clumsily staggered back into the corner opposite Martha, waving his hands in the air as though trying to ward off an unseen enemy. "No! No! Never again! I swore, never again!" He sank to his knees and started sobbing uncontrollably. "Oh god! Please forgive me! I never wanted to do it. Never again. Never … again."

Every one of Martha's instincts told her to run while she had the chance. Strangely, though, the sight of John crying like a small child filled her with an inexplicable feeling of pity. She took a few hesitant steps in his direction. "John, what's the matter?"

"Go away," he whimpered. "So hard … can't give in."

She crouched down next to him. "What's hard?"

"Never again."

"What's hard? Just tell me what it is. I can't help you if I don't know what's wrong."

"I shouldn't have come here. I forgot. I forgot how hard it is to be around your kind. I just hadn't seen any survivors in so long. I thought I could … I thought it would be different this time … I …"

John seemed calmer, and she tried to put a hand on his forehead but he swatted it away. "Please, John. Let me see if you're warm." Again, she reached out and rested her hand on his forehead and then his face. "You're freezing! You're ice cold."

"Don't touch me!" He knocked her hand away again, but this time, her fingers snagged on his sunglasses and they went skidding across the floor. John closed his eyes tight and put his hands over his face. "No! Get away! Get away!"

Any fear Martha had been feeling was now displaced by determination to help this man somehow. "Look at me John. Come on, look at me."

"No, no, no."

"John, come on."

"No!"

"Damn it! Look at me!"

John lowered his hands, slowly opened his eyes, and fixed them on Martha. She instantly backpedaled across the floor away from him. His stare was horrible yet mesmerizing. "It can't be. It's not possible. It's just not possible," she breathed.

His eyes were sunken, dark yellow and horrifyingly bloodshot. His irises were completely obscured by dilated pupils. Martha had seen the same frightening, insatiate orbs only two days ago. Just like the Airman at pharmacy and the thousands of others laid to waste outside, John's eyes were those of one who had long since been dead. His were the eyes of a walker.


	12. John Smith

**Author's Notes:** WOW! I thought I would never get this chapter finished. This has been the hardest one by far. I've had to fight my way through some creative slumps and have also been extremely busy with work (lots of people in my squadron deployed and on leave). I hope this was worth the wait and I don't anticipate such a long wait before I get my next chapter up. I'm nearing the conclusion of this story and when it is done, I'm going to be going back and re-working the whole thing from beginning to end. I don't intend to make any substantial changes. I'm mainly going to add more detail, more texture, and better develop some characters. I'm also going to be correcting some inconsistencies and anachronisms that have managed to find their way in. I look forward to hearing what everyone has to say about my latest offering. With all that being said, enjoy Chapter 12, John Smith.

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"You're not running."

"I'm thinking about it," Martha replied, a slight quiver in her voice.

John looked to where his glasses rested on the floor a few feet away. He reached out to pick them up and Martha scurried all the way across the room until her back rested against the wall opposite him.

"Yeah, you are thinking about it." John half smiled. "It's okay, I'm feeling a lot more … calm now," he reassured her as he put his glasses back on.

"It's not okay," she growled.

"Martha, I …"

"It's not okay!"

"You're right. It's not. Nothing's okay."

Without his coat on, John wasn't at all what she had imagined. He was thin, shockingly so. His lanky frame belied his astonishing speed and strength. Blood and grime bespeckled the front of his faded gray t-shirt, which was relatively clean where his coat covered it. She supposed it was rare for him to not be wearing it. Most striking was his right forearm, which bore a deep scar where a large piece of flesh had been torn away. A similar scar, partly covered by his shirt collar, was visible where his neck met his shoulder.

John discerned Martha's eyes lingering on his old wounds. "Yes, they are what you think they are."

"What? Martha asked, snapping from her trance-like state.

"The scars. They are what you think they are."

"I don't know what you mean," she snapped and averted her eyes.

"They're bites."

"I don't understand."

"No, Martha. I think you do understand. You just don't want to. I can't really say I blame you. So ... what are you going to do now?" He waited for a response but she remained silent. "Martha, what are you going to ...?"

"I don't know! I ... I don't ...what are _you_ going to do?"

"That's easy. There's only one thing I can do. I'm going to leave."

"Leave? What about Kevin?"

"What about him? His wound's healing. His infection is clearing up. He's got his mother, you, and everybody else here. He doesn't need me. He never did. Nobody does. He'll be better off if I just go."

"That isn't true."

John raised a single eyebrow. "Curious. You actually sound concerned."

"Kevin … he … he absolutely adores you. As for Michelle, I'm not a mind reader but I am a woman and I'd guess she feels the same. In all the years I've known her, today is the first time I remember seeing her happy, I mean ... really happy."

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry if I did. That's something I'd never intentionally do."

Martha was genuinely amazed by his sincerity. "I know," she replied.

The two looked at each other across the room without speaking for a long time. "Well?" John asked at length.

"Well what?"

"Something else is on your mind. I can tell. So, what is it?"

"Are … are you …"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Am I what?"

"No, just forget it."

"Yes … I am one of them. I'm a walker."

"Please, stop it! Just stop! I shouldn't have started it! Please! Forget that I even brought it up!"

"That is what you were getting at, wasn't it? That's the answer to the question you couldn't bring yourself to ask, isn't it?"

She didn't want to admit that he was right and she didn't have to. Her infuriated glare told him more than anything she might say. "What are you? Who are you? Who are you really?"

John reached into his back pocket, pulled out a tattered wallet, and tossed it to Martha.

She picked it up and eyed it curiously. "What is this?"

"It's who I am … well, it's who I was. Open it."

On one side was a silver badge adorned by a spread-winged eagle and the Utah state seal. The words "Police Officer Salt Lake City" were emblazoned in blue and gold above the seal and the single word "Detective" was engraved below it.

Opposite the badge was an ID card picturing John. Martha looked intently at the picture. The sight of him without sunglasses and having a normal, healthy complexion was a little disorienting. Next to his picture, the card read, "Smith, John L. DET / Investigations – Gangs/Homicide Division."

"You're a police officer!" she exclaimed.

"I used to be."

"What does DET mean?"

"Detective."

"So what did you do?"

"I did just what my ID says. I was a detective in the gangs and homicide divisions of the Investigations Bureau for the Salt Lake PD."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised," Martha remarked under her breath. "You came here all the way from Salt Lake City, Utah?"

"In a round about sort of way."

Nestled between the badge and the ID were a number of clear pockets that held an assortment of photos. Martha thumbed through the collection, which pictured a young girl and an attractive older woman.

"My wife and daughter," John volunteered.

"They're beautiful."

"Thank you. I think so too."

Martha thought about asking what had happened to them but realized the question would be rhetorical at best and callous at worst. There was, however, one question burning in her mind that she couldn't let go. "John, what happened to you?"

Outside, clouds moved across the early morning sun. Most of the light in the room was wiped away and shadow enveloped John like a blanket. Martha cast a nervous glance at the door, only a couple of feet to her right. "Still thinking about running?" John asked.

The darkness made the question sound ominous and based on what she had seen of John so far, she doubted an escape attempt would do her any good if he actually wanted to stop her. "What happened to you," she asked again, trying to sound resolute.

The sound of thunder drifted through the air. "It's going to rain again."

"John, if you'd rather not talk about it …."

"I died," John answered. "Just like my family, my friends and everyone else I ever knew, I died."

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July 14th, 1993 6:22 P.M.

Light from the setting sun streaked in through the window, flooding the bathroom with a golden hue. The soft light and the warm water were relaxing and helped John forget, even if it was for just a few minutes, the pile of work that would be waiting for him at the office. His peaceful meditations were broken by the sound of his watch alarm, alerting him to the fact that he had finish getting ready to leave. Begrudgingly, he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower.

John wrapped himself in a towel and walked into the bedroom where his wife sat in the middle of their bed, surrounded by photo albums and small boxes of loose pictures. The entire time he was getting dressed, she didn't speak or take her eyes from the pictures in her lap.

The television was on, but the volume was turned all the way down. On the screen was a global map covered with red dots that indicated locations with confirmed infestations of undead. The dots consumed most of the eastern half of the United States, and though they were less dense going westward, they stretched as far as New Mexico. Dots also covered much of Europe and the northern part of Africa.

It seemed a ridiculous thing to do but John still asked, "What's the matter, Susie?"

"What makes you think anything's the matter?" she mumbled.

"The only time you drag out those pictures is when family is visiting or something's bothering you."

"John, what could possibly make you think that something is bothering me." She spoke softly but her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"If this is about my going in to work then …"

"Look at this." She pointed to a snapshot in an album next to her. He recognized it from their wedding reception. "My sister took this. Only four more days and we'll have been married for twenty years."

"Yeah. It's hard to believe it's been that long."

Susie lifted her head. Her eyes were red and glistening. "Let's not stay here. It's only a matter of time before those things finally get across the mountains and into the valley." She got off the bed and clutched frantically at his shirt. "Lots of people have left already. We've got enough gas in the car to get to my dad's house in Nevada. We could …"

"And then what?!" he shouted. "What do we do then? You think this is going to stop here? My god, woman! Everything east of the Mississippi River is dead … or worse. Omaha, Rapid City, Denver, they're all gone. But you know what? You're right. It is only a matter of time. Those things are creeping up on our backyard and I for one am not going to run away, tail tucked firmly between my legs, and just hand this city, our home, over to a bunch of mindless, walking puss bags! So you can get that idea out of your head right now!"

She sank back down on the bed, folded her arms across her stomach and sobbed convulsively. John knelt down and put his arms around her. "I'm sorry. I didn't … I shouldn't have …"

She hugged him back. "No. You're right. I'm just so scared and I don't know what to do."

"I'm scared too." He stole a glance at his watch. "I've got to go, honey."

Susie put on the best smile she could. "I know. Be careful."

"Hey! It's me."

"I know. That's why I'm telling you to be careful." In spite of themselves, both laughed.

"I'll be home as soon as I can," John promised. "I love you."

"I love you too." She grabbed him and kissed him hard. "Go do what you have to do. Just make sure you come home."

John slipped out of the room without looking back. Scarcely had he set foot in the hall when his police issue cell phone rang. "Give me a break," he grumbled before answering, "Detective Smith here, go ahead."

"Hey John."

"Yes sir?" John immediately recognized the voice as that of Captain Fritz, the Investigations Bureau commander for the Salt Lake City police and his boss.

"Where are you?"

"I'm just about to leave home."

"Good. I have a job for you."

"Yes sir."

"On your way to work, stop at Northwest Regional Hospital. They've reported a gunshot victim in the emergency room. I've got two detectives over on Glendale Drive investigating a drive by shooting right now. You're the only other detective working tonight so I need you at the hospital."

"Are the two related?"

"Maybe. We don't know. That's one of the things I want you to find out."

"Yes sir. I'll check it out and report in as soon as I can."

"You're the best. Thanks John."

"Yes sir." John hung up, walked to the door at the end of the hall, and knocked gently.

"Yeah?" came the reply from the other side.

He opened the door just enough to stick his head in. Sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed was his seventeen-year old daughter. Against her chest she clutched a large teddy bear, a gift her parents had given her when she was only three years old. Though she wasn't crying, she was visibly upset.

"You okay, Justine?"

"Uh-huh."

"You mind if I come in for a second?"

"I don't mind."

John stepped in and closed the door behind him. She continued to stare straight ahead as though oblivious to his presence. He sat on the floor next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "You sure you're okay?"

"Daddy, why do you have to go to work? Why are you leaving us here alone?"

"Sweetheart, we have to keep control of what's going on out there. People and property have to be protected and that's my job. I have to go. It's my duty."

Justine abruptly went from being sullen to indignant. "What about your duty to mom and me?!" Anger quickly gave way to tears. She put her arms around her father's neck and buried her face in his shoulder. "Please don't leave us! I don't want you to go, Daddy! I'm scared! What if something happens and you're not here? What if … what if …"

"What if what?"

"No!" she cried and hugged him tighter.

"Justine, tell me. What if what?"

"What if _they_ make it this far? What if they get into the city? What if they come here and you're not home? I don't want to die!" she wailed, echoing her mother's sentiments.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! You're not going to die. You are not going to die. That is absolutely not going to happen. I'm not going to let it. That's the reason I have to go. I've got to make sure we keep those things as far from here as possible."

"When are you coming back home?"

"I'll be home in the morning."

"Promise?"

He took her face in his hands. "I promise." He brushed a few tear soaked strands of hair from her eyes and kissed her forehead. She smiled at him faintly but warmly. "That's what the old man needed to see."

John rose to leave. As his hand came to rest on the door knob, Justine asked him, "Daddy? Have you seen any?"

"Any what?"

"Living dead. Have you seen any?"

For weeks his family had avoided talking about the zombie infection creeping toward them from the east, gaining speed and momentum everyday. When they did feel compelled to discuss it, they made frequent use of euphemisms like 'they' and 'them' when referring to the undead.

Though he gave no outward indication, her pointed choice of words took him aback. "No. I haven't," he replied calmly though he was haunted by a nagging fear that things couldn't stay that way much longer.

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As he drove down the interstate, John surveyed the streets below him. They were deserted, just like he knew they would be at this time of day. More than two weeks had passed since martial law was put into effect for the continental United States and a federally mandated curfew allowed only military, law enforcement, and emergency services personnel outdoors between 7:00 P.M. and 7:00 A.M. Anyone else outside after curfew was subject to arrest and indefinite detention without counsel.

The scene that stretched out before him was very much the same as it had been long before the curfew. The threat of incarceration wasn't necessary for most of the citizenry. Graphic images and detailed reports in the media of the dead returning to life and the ensuing carnage was more than adequate incentive to stay behind locked doors at night.

Of course, there weren't many people moving about during the day anymore either. For awhile, the traffic flow coming through Salt Lake had been dense and steady. As the undead crisis spread along the Eastern seaboard and worked its way inland, people began to flee west, slowly at first but in increasing numbers as casualties mounted. Most of them had no plan or any idea where they were going. All that mattered was getting somewhere the plague wasn't and such places were becoming rarer everyday.

However, as more and more of the eastern half of the United States became uninhabitable, over two-thirds of the country's oil refineries had to be abandoned. Remaining facilities were hard pressed to supply fuel to military forces and civil authorities. As gasoline supplies for the general public dwindled, so did the stream of cars, trucks, and RVs.

When John walked in, the emergency room was eerily quiet. It took a minute or so before he realized that no one was waiting to be seen. "Guess I should have known," he joked to himself. Still, for there to not be a single person there was unsettling, even frightening.

John tapped gently on the glass barrier separating the nurses' station from the reception area. "Excuse me, ma'am."

The woman on the other side, who had been engrossed in the stack of charts on her desk, started from her chair. "Oh my goodness. You scared me."

"I'm sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean to startle you."

"No, no, that's all right. I'm okay." She settled back down into her seat. "Can I help you?"

He pressed his badge against the glass. "Salt Lake City PD, I'm Detective Smith. I'm here about a call we received concerning a gunshot victim."

"Yes, that call came from me. Unfortunately, the gentleman in question died nearly fifteen minutes ago."

"Hmm ... in that case, I'll need to speak with the attending doctor."

"That would be Doctor Ranario. She's down in the morgue right now. Would you like me to call her for you?"

"No. I need to see the victim as well. I'll just go to where she is, if you would be kind enough to direct me."

"Yes sir. Follow this hall around the corner. You'll see an elevator on your right. Take it down to the basement. When you step out of the elevator, turn left and follow the signs to the morgue."

"Thank you, ma'am."

John soon found himself standing in front of a huge solid metal door near the end of a poorly lit hallway. On one side of the door was a keycard reader; on the other was a phone underneath a sign which read, "DIAL 4748 FOR MORGUE ENTRY." John did as the placard instructed and after a couple of rings, a woman answered.

"Northwest Regional morgue, Doctor Ranario speaking."

"Doctor Ranario, this is Detective John Smith from the Salt Lake City police. I'm here about the gunshot victim who died just a short time ago. I need to speak with you, please."

"Where are you?"

"Right outside the morgue."

"Stand by. I'll buzz you in." A few seconds later, there was a loud click as the magnetic lock released and the door swung inward. "Come on in," said the voice on the phone before hanging up.

Inside, it was cold, dark, and the air reeked of disinfectant. Gurneys lined the tile walls which were bare except for a bulletin board with a few officials looking documents tacked onto it and a clipboard that held a visitor sign in sheet. Apart from a door to John's right that led into an office, the room was actually little more than an entrance hall. At the far end was a set of double doors with the words, "MORGUE – Authorized Personnel Only" painted on each.

John slipped quietly through the doors into a room that wasn't much larger than its antechamber. Two large sinks and a number of cabinets stretched along the back wall, ending at a set of eight cooling chambers where bodies were kept while waiting for examination or identification. Near the center of the room, a woman sat on a stool next to a stainless steel table on which lay a draped body.

She appeared to be in her mid-forties. Her long hair was pulled back tightly but several strands had come loose and hung limply across her tired looking face. Though she now seemed calm, her red, puffy eyes betrayed the fact that she had been crying very hard recently.

"Doctor Ranario?" John asked.

She answered with a nod. "Detective Smith?"

"Yes, ma'am." John waited but she didn't rise from her seat, extend a hand, or even look up from the draped figure. He pulled a notepad and pen from his coat pocket. "Doctor, if I could have a moment of your time, I need to ..."

"You know, when I was in my first year of med school, we had a guest lecturer. His name was Doctor Andrew Kirby. He told us that you have to develop an emotional detachment from patients." Her manner caught John off guard. She spoke to him with the relaxed familiarity of an old friend and not someone she had just met. "I thought I could do it. I did do it for fifteen years but ... today ... I ... I wasn't ready for this."

"Ready for what?"

She looked up from the body. "I was outside taking a break about an hour ago. A car pulled up to the entrance, the driver pushed him out the passenger side and took off. He was screaming someone had shot him. There was blood all over his ..." Her lips trembled and her voice faltered. "He ... begged me to not let him die, and ... I ... I told him I wouldn't."

John put his writing implements back in his pocket. A few feet away was another stool which he pulled up to the table. He sat in silence for a few seconds before finally asking, "Who is he?"

"He told me his name was Steven."

"Did he give you a last name?"

"No. He never told me his last name. He collapsed as soon as I got him inside. There was no identification on him."

Inwardly, John was swearing at this turn of events but he remained composed so as to not upset the doctor any further. "Ma'am, I'm going to need to have a police photographer come get some pictures. We'll also need to get fingerprints to help find out who he is."

"When?"

"I'm not sure how quickly I can get someone over here. How long are you going to be around?"

"I'll be here all night."

"Good, I can easily have someone come over before morning. I'll need to get a statement from you when you feel up to it."

"I understand."

"Would it be all right if I take a look at the body right now?"

"Go ahead."

John pulled the sheet back and was instantly overcome by a sinking feeling. On the table was a young man of fifteen, maybe sixteen years. The smell wafting up from the body was a sickening combination of sweat and alcohol. His shirt had been cut away to allow easy access to his torso which was covered in blood except for a large cleansed area around a bullet entry wound on his left side. The peaceful stillness of his face seemed somehow inappropriate in the wake of such a violent death.

"I've seen enough," John said resignedly. "Doctor, I'm going to go back upstairs to make some phone calls. When I've finished, it's very important that you …" his voice trailed off.

"Important that I what?" she asked but John didn't answer. "Detective? Detective? Are you alright?"

"His eyes."

"Excuse me?"

"His eyes are twitching."

"But that's … " She looked down and, just as John said, both eyelids were fluttering sporadically. After several tense seconds, his eyes snapped wide open. "Oh my god!" Doctor Ranario gasped and both she and John backed away.

The young man rolled off the table and landed on his hands and knees, dragging the sheet with him. He jerked and twisted awkwardly but ultimately managed to free himself of the entanglement. John and the doctor watched dumbfounded as he got to his feet.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down," Doctor Ranario said reassuringly. She ran over and grabbed him by his shoulders. "Just calm down. It's going to be okay. I'm going to help you!"

For a moment, Steven seemed to remember Doctor Ranario, but recognition quickly slipped away from his confused, forlorn eyes and was replaced by a frightening vacancy. A guttural screech erupted from his throat, and he shoved the doctor to the floor, falling atop her.

John started for his side arm, but the probability of accidentally hitting Doctor Ranario made him decide against it. Instead, he delivered a strong, swift kick to Steven's side, aimed directly at his bullet wound, which knocked him off of his struggling quarry. Showing no sign of pain, the crazed teenager fixed his ravenous gaze on heretofore unnoticed prey. "Stay down, Doctor!" John shouted. He drew his weapon and fired a single round, striking the young man in the center of his chest.

The force of the impact to his sternum caused Steven to reel momentarily, but otherwise he appeared unaffected by the shot. Rather than going down, he leapt over the doctor and brought his teeth down on the soft skin of John's right inner forearm. He screamed and yanked his arm away, leaving a large piece of flesh dangling from the rabid boy's maw.

Steven chewed greedily but had little time to savor his hard-won prize. Now on her feet, Doctor Ranario jumped on his back and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. He spun and bucked erratically, trying to shake her off until finally, her additional weight made him overbalance and fall over backwards. The doctor's head struck the floor with a resounding crack, and she lay still.

John scooped his weapon up off the floor, but before he could bring it to bear on his attacker, Steven was up and lunged at him with renewed ferocity. The boy slammed his face into the side of John's neck and dug his teeth in deep. Despite the intense, searing pain, John managed to keep his wits about him enough to not try to pull away and possibly cause more tissue damage like he did with his arm. He pressed the barrel of his gun to Steven's temple, pulled the trigger, and the two fell to the floor together beneath a shower of crimson.

"Son of a bitch," John groaned. He dragged himself out from underneath the now motionless body and crawled over to where Doctor Ranario lay on her side. One eye was partially open and her lower jaw hung loosely. A growing stream of blood ran from the side of her head and snaked along the grout between the tiles on its way to the center floor drain. "Oh no! Oh no! No! No! No! NO! Doctor! Doctor! I'm … I'm going to … get … help."

His head swam with pain and each breath was a laborious effort but John stood up and lurched toward the door. "Going … to … get help," he rasped. He pressed hard against the gaping hole in his neck in an attempt to slow the bleeding, but his racing heart continued to force blood out of his torn carotid artery in furious spurts.

Leaning on the wall for support, he made his way out of the morgue and back down the hall. He was dizzy and pawed randomly at the wall next to the elevator trying to find the up button through the swirling haze that consumed his field of vision. At last, the doors slid open, and he staggered inside. It was a little easier to see in the brightly illuminated elevator, and he was able to make out the button for the first floor. He pressed it and sank to his knees.

The ride up took only a few seconds, but it felt like hours. When the doors opened, he tried to get up but a debilitating numbness was rapidly overtaking his extremities. He crawled on hands and knees but made it only a couple of feet before collapsing face down on the cold tile, half-in-half-out of the elevator. Over the faint, sporadic pulse throbbing in his ears, he could just make out the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!" the nurse cried in rapid succession when she turned the corner and saw John's prone body and the puddle of blood around him that stood out in horrifying contrast to the white tiles on which he lay. "I need a crash cart at the elevator!" she screamed to no one in particular.

She rolled John over on his back, and her stomach convulsed in panic when she beheld the extent of his injuries and blood loss. "Can you hear me? Come on! Can you hear me? What is your name? Do you know where you are?"

"I promised," he croaked.

"What? What did you say?" the nurse asked.

"I promised … home in the morning. I … I …," he said with great difficulty. His eyes lolled about, trying to find something on which to focus, but in the darkness there was nothing, not even the beat of his heart.


	13. The Walker

**Author's Notes: PLEASE READ**

Wow! This chapter has been a LOOOOOONG time coming. I haven't posted in about a year. I want to apologize to all those who have enjoyed my work and have been waiting all this time for something new. I hope you will understand that because I'm in the military, there are a lot of demands on my time and it has been worse since I became the officer-in-charge of my section.

I'm going to do my best to avoid such a lapse again. However, I'm deploying to Afghanistan in a few weeks and will not be back until late September. I don't know what kind of time or resources I'll have for writing but I'll do my best.

As my story has evolved, it has become a lot longer and more in depth than what I originally planned. I ask everyone's indulgence as once I have finished it, I'm going to go back and do some major re-writes. I'm not going to change anything as far as the substance of the story. My intention is to add more detail, improve my character development, and eliminate some inconsistencies/anachronisms.

Please note that the rating on my story has been changed to MATURE. There is some very intense, graphic material in this chapter and it may be disturbing to sensitive readers as there are places where children are involved. **READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!**

To that end, this is your chance to help me. Please take the time to review my latest chapter and let me know what you think. My ego is not fragile and I can take constructive criticism. I read each review carefully and have made changes to past chapter based on reader feedback.

I now offer Chapter 13, _The Walker_ and stay tuned for Chapter 14, _The Fire_. It's great to be back!!!

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July 18th, 1993 5:22 P.M.

A steady, rhythmic plop-plop-plop echoed in John's ears, stirring him to consciousness. He opened his eyes and blinking repeatedly, brought his blurred vision back into focus. From where he lay on his back, he looked around for several moments, trying to get his bearings. A feeling of anxiety began to course through him as the realization dawned. He didn't know where he was.

He rolled over on his side and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. His muscles were taut and his joints snapped loudly with every movement. Waves of dizziness swept over him and he thought he might collapse back to the floor but his trembling arms held and his head soon stopped spinning.

Rays from the evening sun streaming through the window blinds behind him fell over his shoulders and onto the floor, providing the only light in the otherwise dark room. The light glistened off of a large puddle of blood less than a foot away. Hesitantly, he pressed his hand into the carpet and his anxiety swelled into full-blown panic when the blood squished easily between his fingers. It was still fresh and warm.

John sprang to his feet and teetered backward against the wall. His eyes darted about frantically, taking in his surroundings. The room in which he found himself was sparsely furnished with only an armoire, a double bed and an overturned night table. In one corner was a wastebasket overflowing with empty water bottles, food cans, and candy bar wrappers. A few movie posters adorned the plain white walls but no personal pictures or other decorations of any kind.

There was bright red blood all over the disheveled bedding and John's filthy, torn clothes. He quickly checked himself for injury, but amidst a number of small cuts, punctures, and bruises, the only thing he could find of any consequence was a large laceration on his right forearm. However, it was covered by a thick black scab and even if it had been bleeding, it couldn't have accounted for the copious amount of blood all about him.

Sinking to the floor, John closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands. Desperately, he racked his brain, trying to remember something, anything that would help him figure out how he'd gotten here, what happened to his arm, and even more importantly, where all this blood came from. Random, disconnected thoughts collided in his head and the harder he tried to concentrate, the more frustrated he became. The only thing clear to him was the dripping sound which he had tried to tune out so he could focus on what was happening to him. It had slowed a bit but it was still there.

_Plop-plop-plop_

He let his eyes drift back to the stain on the floor. It had grown darker and larger as it soaked further into the carpet. Large splotches of blood led away from it along the floor and out the room's only door, which was broken in and hanging precariously by a single twisted hinge.

Silently, John stood up and inched toward the door, senses keen for any movement in the dark hallway beyond. Cautiously, he stepped around splinters from the shattered door jam. He'd already made enough noise as it was but hoped it wasn't too late to avoid betraying his presence to anyone or anything hostile that might be lurking outside the room. Every couple of steps he stopped and listened intently for any sound but heard only one thing.

Plop-plop-plop

John craned his head out the door, following the blood. It trailed the entire length of the hallway and ended at the body of a woman lying prone at the top of a set of stairs. Heedless of any danger to himself, he ran to her.

She was motionless except for the rise and fall of her back as she breathed spasmodically. Her right arm hung limply through the banister. Every few seconds a drop of blood fell from her fingertips and struck the hardwood floor below with, what seemed to John, thunderous impact.

_Plop-plop-plop_

Gently, he rolled her over and held her with one arm. With his free hand, he brushed her bloodied hair from her pale, sweaty face. "Oh my god," he whispered hoarsely. It was his younger sister Angela. This was her house.

Her throat was torn open and frothy blood oozed from the wound. With each of her attempts to get a full breath, her whole body shuddered. "Oh no…oh no…no…you're…you're going to be fine Angie! You'll be okay. Everything's going to be okay." John said, trying to sound reassuring. "I just need you to hang on. I'll get you out of here. I'll get you help. I'll…"

She turned her wide eyes toward him. "J-John?" she choked.

"Yeah. Yeah, Angie. It's me."

Her expression was a mixture of terror and desperation. "John … John … pl … pl … please … please … don't …" Her chest heaved violently as her struggle for air became more laborious. "Please … don't …"

"Don't what?"

"Plea … please … don't … hurt me …"

"What? No, no, no. It's me. I'm not …"

"Please … don't … hurt me … any … more."

"Angie, it's John. I'm …"

"Please … don't …hurt …" Angela gasped. She convulsed wildly against John's grip until, suddenly, she went still. Her head fell back and one final breath escaped her lips.

"Angie? Angie? Angie! No! I…I…I…help…I've got to…get help." John eased her down onto the floor and fumbled through his pockets in search of his cell phone but it was gone. He ran back to the bedroom and after a brief search, found a cordless phone on the floor next to the night table. He snatched it up, pressed the talk button, and pressed it to his ear but instead of a dial tone; the phone emitted only a few feeble beeps and the words "LOW BATTERY" appeared on its LCD screen.

The phone's plastic casing cracked and splintered as John, frustrated and enraged, tightened his grip. "You've got to be kidding me!" he wailed and hurled the useless device into the wall.

He hastened back to Angela and knelt down next to her. For a few tense seconds, John allowed himself the faint hope that she wasn't beyond help. He placed his fingers against her neck, feeling for a pulse. He waited and waited and waited but her cold skin was unmoving. She was dead. "Angie…I…I don't…this isn't happening… THIS JUST ISN'T HAPPENING!" he yelled and slammed his clenched fists down hard onto the floor. "It's…this is…it's not happening."

As a detective, death was, in a very real sense, John's business. He was acquainted with it in many ways that only a few people could imagine and years of bodies and bloodshed had left him hardened and convinced there wasn't anything that could shock him. But this was like nothing he'd seen before. This wasn't a gang hit, a random John Doe in a back alley, a drug deal gone bad, or someone who pissed off the wrong guy. This was his baby sister.

The sight of her battered body filled him with anger and despair. Even in death, she looked so helpless and afraid that the thought of leaving her here alone made him feel sick at heart. Still, he couldn't stay and grieving would have to wait until later. Right now, regardless of what he was feeling, he was still a police officer and he was in the middle of a crime scene.

He struggled to focus on the things he knew he had to do. First, he needed to get to a working phone so he could call headquarters. The coroner would have to be contacted, Forensics dispatched, and a formal investigation started, which would no doubt be greatly concerned with what he was doing there.

John started to his feet but hesitated at the last moment. He softly cupped Angela's face in his hands. "I'll come back for you. I promise. I'll come back and…I'll take care of you," he said with calm assurance as though she could hear him. "I'm going to find who did this," he whispered through clenched teeth. "I swear. I _will _find who did this to you." With those words, he rose and ran down the stairs and out the open front door. Scarcely had he cleared the last step off the porch when he was stopped in his tracks by the spectacle that awaited him outside.

Angela's was the last house at the end of Chartwell Court. Lying near Ensign Peak at the western base of the Wasatch Mountains and north of the city center, the street normally offered a beautiful, panoramic view of the Salt Lake Valley as far west as Bingham Canyon and, on a clear day, almost as far south as Riverton. But today was anything but clear.

Thick columns of smoke billowed across the sky from at least a dozen large fires scattered throughout the valley, obscuring the horizon and filling the air with an acrid smell. From his vantage point, he could see a line of flames some two miles long snaking along City Creek Canyon from its opening south of Memory Grove Park all the way past the ridge just north of West Bonneville Boulevard.

Even though John had lived in Salt Lake his entire life, the city, now bathed in smoke and embers, seemed strangely unfamiliar. The streets stretching out below looked far more like a smoldering battlefield than the place he knew as home. It was a sight both horrible and fascinating.

His eyes moved methodically over the valley and gradually, he began to realize that something was wrong beyond what he was seeing. John watched and listened, fully expecting the city to be exploding with wailing sirens and flashing lights but there was nothing, not a single fire truck, helicopter, ambulance, or police car in sight. Everything was quiet.

He turned his head one way, then another and another and another, looking for someone else, anyone else, but by all appearances, the area was deserted. Without further thought, he ran to the house next door. Whatever else was happening would have to wait; Angela was his main concern right now.

"Hello! Is anyone home?! This is an emergency! I need a phone!" he shouted as he pounded on the door. "Is there anyone in there?! Hello!" He waited but when it became apparent no one was going to answer, he raced to the next house and tried again. "Salt Lake PD! Open your door! This is a police emergency! I need your phone!" Just as before, there was no response.

Undeterred, he continued down the block from house to house, banging on the doors, with the same result each time. The anger inside him swelled with each passing second and he charged up the steps of one last residence bellowing, "This is Detective John Smith, Salt Lake City Police! OPEN...THE GOD...DAMNED...DOOR!" But there was no one there.

Maddened, he stormed back out to the sidewalk. "What the hell?!" he howled. "Isn't...isn't there anybody? Isn't there anybody out there?! Hello?!" He looked about randomly. "Somebody?! Anybody?!" John's echoing cries soon faded away and once more, the neighborhood fell quiet, the silence broken only by the soft rustle of leaves in wind-stirred branches.

For a while, he stood where he was, seething, repeatedly clenching his hands into fists, and grinding his teeth. John tried to form an intelligent thought but what little mental clarity he'd managed to summon up to this point had evaporated and now he felt only rage, almost to the point of delirium. He was confused and didn't know where to go or what to do. So, he just walked.

As he ambled along, his eyes shifted from side-to-side, surveying the street. Piles of uncollected trash lined the sidewalk. Lawns were unkempt. Though some were unscathed, many houses on either side of him had windows and doors smashed in. A couple looked like the occupants had made an effort to board them up using a hodgepodge of wood scraps and even some metal, but with little success as most of the impromptu barricades had been ripped away or broken through. All, however, were dark, still, and silent.

John rounded the bend and came to where Chartwell crossed Ensign Vista Drive, creating a four-way stop. On the southwest corner of the intersection, stood a beautiful ranch style house positioned high above the street. A large stone retaining wall terraced a lawn, which, other than needing mowing, was flawlessly manicured.

In every regard, the property was picturesque except for the end of the drive near the sidewalk where lay a girl's bicycle. It was small, with training wheels, just the right size for a three or four year old child. A few feet away was a pink helmet that was cracked all the way down the middle and next to that was a little stuffed bear. Spattered all over the bike's frame, the helmet, the bear, and the pavement was blood. A lot of it. And in the midst of it all was one small, distinct handprint. While he didn't know exactly what had happened, it was easy to see that it was bad, really bad.

He turned his back on the horror splayed on the concrete. Unconsciously, he ran his fingers through his hair as he bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. "This isn't happening. It's not happening," he hissed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't chase away the image of the blood or the toy bear, especially the bear which, except for its size, looked so much like Justine's.

John's head snapped up and his eyes went wide. In an instant, his mind was clear enough to finally really realize where he was. He looked back up the street in the direction of Angela's from where he just came then south toward Dartmoor Lane where, only a couple of miles away, was his house.

"Justine…Susie!" he exclaimed and took off running. He sprinted the length of Ensign Vista then took to cutting through yards and weaving among the houses, making a bee-line for home. He no longer cared about the fires raging below. And for the moment, he had all but forgotten his dead sister left behind. There was only the sick dread that his wife and daughter could be in grave danger. Furiously he pumped his arms and legs, driving forward, closing the distance.

He crossed Ensign Downs Park, East Churchill Drive, and then leapt over a row of privacy fences, one after the other. When he cleared the last one, he was on Dartmoor Lane and not more than one hundred feet from his home.

All of it, everything, was what he expected and feared. The neglect and the damage up and down the block was very much the same as on Chartwell but with John, it hardly registered. Instead, he was zeroed in on the large, hastily scrawled sign hanging in Justine's bedroom window which read, "HELP ALIVE INSIDE".

"No…no…no! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" John bolted, sprinting for his front door, which hung wide open. He took the steps three at a time and blindly launched himself inside but quickly skidded to a halt. For a few moments, he stood stock still. His mouth moved dumbly, struggling, but unable, to put words to what he was seeing. On the floor around the bottom of the staircase and lying on the stairs themselves were several dead bodies and a large number of expended rounds from a 9mm.

There were eight of them, five men and three women lying beneath of cloud of swarming flies. From their condition and the putrid smell, John knew they had to have been here like this for days. All had substantial head trauma, were badly decomposed, and some were mutilated. The right arm of one of the men was ripped off just below the shoulder. Another was missing his lower jaw and his nose. One of the women was completely naked, lying on her side. Strands of fetid entrails hung from a gaping hole in her stomach.

"Susie! Justine!" he called out. There was no reply.

Awkwardly, he stepped over the corpses making his way upstairs. He hit the top step and turned to go to his daughter's room. He pushed open the door and stumbled in. Her bedroom was a mess and the fading light of the sun shining through the red lettering of the sign in her window cast the room in an eerie glow. But nevertheless, it was empty. He grabbed the phone on Justine's dresser but there was no dial tone. After depressing the hook several times in rapid succession and still getting nothing, he slammed it down.

Not wasting anymore time, he spun and ran to the other side of the house. "Susie! Justine! Where are…" he started but faltered when he saw the door to Susie's and his bedroom. It was broken completely in two, right down the middle. One side still hung on the hinges, the other lay on the floor.

Blood was everywhere, on the carpet, the walls, the bed, and stacks of family photos scattered all about. At the foot of their bed lay another rotting body like the ones downstairs. Clutched in its right hand was a large chunk of bloody scalp with dark brown hair on it like his daughter's. Attached to the scalp was an ear with a gold earring that had a blue topaz in the center. It was one of a pair that belonged to Justine.

"Oh god…oh god…OH GOD! Susie! SUSIE! Where are you?! It's me! It's John!" he wailed as he flung open the closet doors and looked under the bed but found nothing. "Susie! Are you in there?" he called through the bathroom door. "Susie!" John tried the knob but it was locked.

"If you're in there Susie, I'm kicking this thing down right now!" He backed up a couple of steps then drove his heel into the wood next to the knob where it would be weakest. The door flew inward with a deafening crash and there right in front of him was his wife.

Susie laid slumped over in the bottom of the shower. Her eyes were sunken and withered, her skin gray and mottled. Blood and bone fragments of what used to be the back of her skull covered the wall behind her and ran down along the tiles and grout lines to the drain below. In her left hand she held his Glock 17, her finger still tight on the trigger. The slide was locked back; the weapon was empty and between her legs was a single shell casing.

John fell to his knees next to her body. "Aaah…aaah…aaah…what is this? What is this?!" His frangible grip on reason at last failed him and his voice rose to a frenzied scream. "WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IN THE GODDAMN HELL IS GOING ON?! AAARGH!!!"

He leaned in and pulled her close to his chest. "Susie…baby…sweetie…" he stammered as he rocked her back and forth. "Oh baby…oh baby…oh baby." He squeezed her tighter and pressed his cheek to hers. "No…no…no… no …what…did you do? What did you do? OH GOD!!!!"

For nearly an hour, he sat on the floor, cradling her. He kept hoping he would wake up and this would all be a bad dream but as badly as he wanted to, he couldn't keep pretending this wasn't real. John carried her to their bed where he laid her down gently and arranged her as best he could.

The sun was getting lower and shadows stretched across the blood splattered walls. A ray of light fell across her milky eyes and it was more than he could bear to see. With a stroke of his hand he closed her lids and then softly kissed her cold, shriveled lips. The smell of death, her state of decay; he didn't care about those things, only that the love of his life was gone and nothing could change that.

He went to the wardrobe against the wall on the other side of the room to get a sheet to cover her. There were plenty on the bed but they were all drenched in blood and he loved her too much to use one of them. She deserved better than that. Briefly, he rested his forehead on the piece of aged furniture, trying to steel his frayed nerves. "You can do this, John. You can do this," he told himself as he yanked open the doors and came face-to-face with a stranger.

He staggered back, away from the man whose dark, sunken, red-rimmed eyes stood out boldly against pale, sallow skin. Blood covered much of his face as well as his grimy clothing. Flesh hung in tatters from a large gaping wound in the side of his neck. "My god," John uttered and, to his shock, the mouth of the person opposite him moved in time with the words. It was then he realized he was looking at the mirror mounted inside the right wardrobe door. The macabre visage staring at him was his own.

In one awful instant, memory swept over him like a wave. He remembered the plague, the walking dead, Doctor Ranario, the boy in the morgue, hurting, bleeding, and dying. Bit by bit, sights and sounds came back to him with agonizing clarity. Voices reverberated through his head; loud, frightened, pleading, overlapping each other.

No! No! Please! No!

_Oh my god! Please, save me! Somebody help me!!_

_Please! Don't! Not my baby!_

As if he were in a dream, he could see himself moving through streets, walking, running, chasing after people and tackling them, ripping the flesh right off their bones with his teeth and bare hands, tearing into houses, dragging people out of cars, and all the while surrounded by thousands of others doing like things.

A torrent of faces flooded his mind; the nurse who found him outside the elevator, a paramedic, a homeless girl on South 1300, a night guard at the Tesoro oil refinery, a little girl who snuck out the house because she wanted to ride her new bike, and dozens of other people he didn't know. But there was one among the teaming mass in his head that he did, Angela.

Almost as vividly as if he were standing there now, he could see Angela cowering in the corner, hear her broken voice saying, "No! Not you John! Not you! Please!" He could remember the way her hot, sticky blood felt gushing over his face and the taste of her flesh still lingered in his mouth.

Ever the detective, his mind began assembling the pieces into a coherent picture. He was dead. He'd been dead for days. He was one of them! He was one of the living dead! It was the boy. The boy in the morgue infected him and then John himself carried it out of the hospital and into Salt Lake where it spread and spread until it consumed everything.

And now, here in his own home, it came together. It all made sense to him now, or as much sense as it could ever make. No one ever answered the call for help in Justine's window. By the time she hung it, there was probably no one left to come to their rescue. But the dead, they came.

It wasn't difficult to surmise from the bodies and the empty shells that Susie and Justine had tried to fight but there were too many of them. Susie killed as many as she could but in the end, used her last round of ammunition on herself rather than be so much meat or become one of them. Those things killed his little girl and they killed his wife just as much as if they had pulled the trigger.

John looked at his hands, at his dead wife, his daughter's ear, then at his hands again; his dirty, bloody hands. "I…I did…I did this. This is…my fault. This is my fault. THIS IS MY FAULT!!" he screamed and smashed his fist into the mirror. The glass exploded into hundreds of jagged shards that blew across his face and onto the floor but some still clung to the door. He'd kept his last promise to Angela. He found her killer.

In his own fractured reflection, there he was.

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July 19th, 1993 7:21 A.M.

All night he sat on the floor next to the bed, silent, unmoving. The people he'd killed and the things, the terrible things he'd done, played like a movie in his head over and over and over again. His last words with his wife and daughter were as clear to him now as they were four days ago. His stubborn refusal to leave even when Susie begged him, his promise to Justine that he would be back in the morning; those conversations ate at his soul, such as it was. He made no effort to shut out any of it. He wanted to relive every painful moment, to feel the full weight of his guilt pressing tight against him.

John had seen a lot of grieving people on the other side of a line of police tape while he and a dozen other cops stood around their loved one. Homicide was very ugly but he was a good detective and he knew how to maintain an emotional distance, how to be objective. But he couldn't do that now, not with his own family. He'd never understood how someone could learn to live with this kind of loss and he had no intention finding out because he wasn't going to live with this. He was going to end it like he should have in the first place.

He retrieved his Glock from the bathroom and got his small gun safe out of the closet. The key was still in the lock and the lid propped open from when Susie took the weapon out. It held a full magazine so John dropped the empty one from his pistol and reloaded. The sound and feel of the slide carrying forward as it chambered a round was reassuring to him. "Soon enough. First things first."

Starting with the one in his room, he dragged the bodies out of the house one-by-one and piled them up in the street. In Justine's room, he put everything away, made her bed, and took down the sign in her window. "Alive inside," he read aloud. "Well…not anymore."

He didn't harbor any delusions about being able to clean up all the blood in his room. There was just too much. Instead, he contented himself with gathering all the pictures back into their respective boxes and wrapping Susie, along with what little remained of Justine in several sheets and putting her back in the middle of the bed.

John placed the gun in his belt and sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from Susie. "I have to do one more thing. I have to…I have to be sure about Angie. I can't leave her like…I just have to be sure."

He cast a glance at the digital clock on the wall. Below the time, the date read July 19, 1993. "Twenty years. It doesn't seem like it's been that long." He reached behind his back and placed a hand over where he'd folded Susie's across her chest. "Happy anniversary sweetie," he said softly and rose to go. "Just one more thing to do and I'll be back." He rested a hand on the pistol. "Then I'll end this and…we can…be together again."

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It took almost and hour and a half to walk back to Angela's. He took a needlessly circuitous route, trying to forestall the inevitable. The whole way, he scrutinize every house. Nothing was different on any street from what he'd already seen and there weren't any people around, living or dead, only a dog that scurried away the second it caught sight of him.

When he did get to his sister's, the view had changed from the day before. Fires continued to burn in the valley but much of the smoke and particulate matter had begun settling out of the air and now hung low to the ground, casting a yellowish-brown haze over the city.

Gun in hand, he walked through her door. He didn't know what to expect so he kept the pistol up and looked over the sights at the top of the stairs where he left Angela. Only now, she was gone.

Quietly, he made his way upstairs and down the hall to her bedroom where he found her standing in front of the windows. Her head listed to one side and she swayed uneasily on her feet.

John was nervous but his hand was steady as he set his sights on the back of her head. His finger hovered over the trigger but bringing himself to do it was harder than he thought it would be. After what felt like an eternity, he lowered the gun and took a step into the room.

"Angie?"

She stopped swaying. Her head jerked around and she locked eyes with him. The movements were so abrupt that John reflexively brought his pistol to bear on her but she didn't try to make a move on him.

Her skin was stark white and her jaw hung slack. In her countenance, in her eyes, there was something John couldn't quite make out. Was it sadness or anger or both? She took several faltering steps toward him until she mere inches from his upraised weapon.

"Angie…I…I don't…I don't know what to say. I…"

Angela moved her jaw up and down a few times as though she was trying to force herself to speak but all she managed was a feeble moan. She closed her eyes and leaned forward until her forehead rested on the gun's muzzle. "Oh my god," John whimpered. Did she understand what he was there to do? Was there enough of her left to know this was no way to go on?

"I'm sorry."

BLAM!

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The mid-afternoon air was hot and dry. There had been no rain for weeks and the sun beat down on the land without mercy. A line of dark storm clouds hung teasingly over the far side of the Oquirrh Mountains to the west but they probably wouldn't make it over the range and into the valley below. The fires would continue to burn. Flames were already spreading into the hills through dry brush and grass. With no rain and no one left to fight the fire, it would eventually reach the houses at the base of Ensign Peak. Everything around John would be reduced to smoking rubble and ash.

In the garage, John found a shovel and beneath the shade of her yard's only tree, he dug a hole just deep enough to bury Angela. He took some large stones from a neighbor's rock garden and laid them out in a makeshift cross over where he'd laid her.

"When I said…that…I would take care of you…I didn't think it would be like this. I'm sorry Angie…for everything. I wish…I wish…just…wherever you are…please…try to not hate me."

He tried telling himself that at least it was over for her but that still didn't make him feel any better. The only thing for which he was grateful was that he didn't find Susie or Justine like that. He had a hard enough time dropping the hammer on his sister. He knew he would never have been able to pull the trigger on them. Other than his wife and daughter, his sister was his only family. With all of them gone, his only comfort was that he was the last thing he had to deal with, the last mess to clean up.

John plodded back down the street, making his last walk home. After a few minutes, he came back once again to the house with the bicycle. He tried to keep going, to not look, but it was impossible. It was like her blood was screaming at him from the ground, demanding he answer for himself.

He put the bike upright, hung the broken helmet on the handlebars, and placed the teddy bear on the seat "I'm sorry to you too." Kneeling, he put his hand on the ground next to the little handprint. It looked even smaller compared to his. "God…so damned tiny. She never had a chance." That girl's face and the sound of her muffled screams for her daddy was something he would never forget.

He didn't know how long he spent ruminating before his meditations were interrupted by a loud crash behind him. A couple of houses over, there stood a man in the driveway amongst a bunch of cans and bottles spilled from a tipped over recycling bin. John drew his gun and strode quickly toward this unexpected arrival.

The man was young, possibly in his mid-twenties, barefoot and shirtless. He looked intact except for three bullet holes in his chest and his left eye, which hung out of the socket. He held fast to an unidentifiable piece of muscle that he was chewing ravenously.

Although John stood hardly more than arm's length away and had a gun pointed directly at his head, the man showed no awareness. Tempting as it was, John didn't shoot. He watched the creature, disgusted and fascinated.

"You don't even know I'm here," he said indignantly. "Or do you?" Still, there was no reaction. "Hey! You!" John yelled and slapped him against the head. This time, he snarled and backed away like a hungry dog protecting his food but didn't even look up from what he was eating.

In that moment, in this one zombie, he saw all of the undead. The ones on the news, the ones closing in on Salt Lake that he had been so determined to somehow keep out, the ones that killed his family and, worst of all, he saw himself.

"You don't care, do you? Because we're same thing. You and me, the same thing…almost." John drew back and with all the force he could muster, struck the side of the creature's face with his gun. The walker hit the ground hard, his jaw broken in two, and John fell on top of him.

The zombie bucked and squirmed beneath him, flailing his arms and legs. Whether it was reflexes or some semi-conscious attempt at self-defense, John didn't know and he didn't care. This thing was never going to get up again.

With one hand, John pinned it by the throat; with the other, he pummeled it in the face. "I'LL KILL YOU! ALL OF YOU! EVERY LAST GODDAMN ONE OF YOU!" He grabbed the chunk of meat the walker had dropped and crammed it in its mouth. "How is it?! Is that good?! You like that don't you?! IS IT GOOD?!!!" He brought his fist down over and over, dozens of times and didn't stop until there was nothing left of the thing's head but a gooey mixture of blood, brains, and bone.

A plethora of emotions burned in John's mind but his body was quiet. There was no pounding in his chest, no shortness of breath, nor rush of adrenaline. In the back of his blood soaked fist, a large splinter of bone was lodged under the skin. He yanked it out and not entirely to his surprise there was no pain, none. All he felt was raw, untempered rage, grief, fear, and hunger.

Finally, he saw the devastation on every side of him for what it really was, the wholesale destruction of all he'd ever known or cared about. "Oh yeah…I get it. I get it. I GET IT!" He scooped up his pistol. "Not like this…not like this. It's not going to happen. I'm not going to let it go down this way!"

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The view of Salt Lake from the top of Ensign Peak was amazing. This was Susie's favorite place. It was where John asked her to marry him. They even bought their house not only because it was close to his sister but to this place. The whole family loved making the hike to the top almost every weekend. John couldn't think of a better place to lay his two favorite girls to rest.

He looked over the city. "They're out there honey and I don't think anything is going to stop them…" he turned and knelt next to the mound of earth, "…except me. I don't know if there's anyone else out there who can. That's why I have to do this. That's why I can't be with you yet. They'll never see me coming because…I'm one of them."

"Susie, I've loved you for a long time, I'll always love you. Justine…you'll always be my little girl. I wish…I could have seen you grow up. There's no way I can make this right for you and your mom, but there is something I can do and I don't care how long it takes. Even if it takes me the rest of my…" he pursed his lips at the thought he almost said 'life'. "What happened to you and your mom shouldn't happen to anyone. I'll kill them baby. I'll kill all of them…for good. And I know how." He trudged back down the hill toward his house, feeling even more weighed down than when carried Susie's body to the top.

When he got to his room, he tossed the gun onto the floor. He wasn't going to be needing it. It was hopelessly impractical for what he was setting out to do. There were too many of the undead and he'd couldn't carry enough ammunition to deal with more than a handful at a time. He was going to require something else and he had just the thing.

He dragged his foot locker out of the back of the closet. At the bottom, under a pile of books, pictures, old awards, and other assorted collectibles was a long wooden box with a metal plate, on which was engraved, "Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Smith, USMC".

John placed the box on the bed. He hadn't had this out for a long time, at least not since Justine was about six years old. It had been his father's most prized possession and when John opened the case, it was with a reverence bordering on the religious. He brushed aside the black silk wrappings to reveal the sword his father had brought home from the war in the Pacific.

The scabbard, once black and shiny, had been dulled by time and was chipped in a few places but remained sturdy. The leather wrappings on the handle were also worn but the blade was flawless and glistened like new. This was no ceremonial, stamped metal showpiece. Forged by a master sword smith hundreds of years ago, it wasn't just beautiful, it was a weapon in the truest sense. Made from carbon infused, folded steel, this could hack apart a million zombies and still be razor sharp. This was it. This elegant steel, not a bullet to the brain, was John's destiny.

It would be dark in a little more than four hours. The thought of waiting until tomorrow morning to leave, to spend one last night in the house did occur to him but he quickly dismissed it. There was no reason to wait. He didn't feel the least bit sleepy. He doubted he even needed to sleep anymore. And without Susie and Justine, this was just a house, not a home. All he had left now were memories and those he could take with him.

He changed clothes into a t-shirt, jeans, work boots, and the duster coat Susie had given him a few Christmases ago. This was the first time he'd taken out of the closet. In fact, he'd never actually worn it except for when he tried it on the day he got it but it would do a good job keeping out the elements. He collected a few of his favorite pictures to put in his wallet, slung the sword over his shoulder and left the house without looking back, probably to never return.

He walked south to where Dartmoor Lane dead ended. He looked to the mountains east of him, to the half of the country that was already dead. There had to be millions of zombies out there, just waiting. They'd have to wait a little longer. First, he was going to deal with what was here at home.

At the bottom of the hill was Victory Road. It ran all the way through the center of Salt Lake and merged with Interstate 15. Major businesses and residential neighborhoods flanked it on either side the entire way. "Perfect," John thought aloud. He descended the hill and started toward downtown where he suspected he would find most of the dead.

After three or so miles he came to where Victory Road passed the Utah State Capitol building. Just off the street was a parking lot with a large sign over the gated entrance which read, "CAPITOL EMPLOYEE PARKING ONLY". There were no cars in the lot but there was a man wearing a guard's uniform.

The front of his shirt was ripped open as was his abdomen. A length of his intestines hung out, dragging the ground, and as he stumbled around in a circle, he kept stepping on it, slowing disemboweling himself. Shredded pieces of his insides already stained much of the pavement around his feet.

As John approached, he fumbled to draw the sword from the scabbard on his back and wound up dropping it. It hit the concrete with a horrendously loud ping but the dead man paid no attention. "That's going to take practice," John thought as he picked it up, grateful no one was around to see.

John hoisted the blade high and brought it down hard. It split the zombie's skull with a satisfying crack and went deep into its brain where it got stuck. The walker went down like a puppet that had had its strings cut and took the sword with it. John tried to wrest it from the thing's cranium and was successful only after putting his foot on its already mangled face to get some leverage.

"Damn it! That wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. More practice…that's all. Just need more practice."

For the next hour he continued on into the heart of the city but saw nothing. Every house, every building was empty. There wasn't even anything to be seen at the West Cross Mall. "Damn.. thought for sure _something_ would be there of all places."

Every few minutes he called out, partly in hopes of attracting the undead, but also on the off chance there might be survivors somewhere. Although, the way he himself looked made him question what kind of reception he would get. But he still had to try.

John began to wonder if all the walkers he remembered had moved on from the valley like some flesh easting herd in search of more prey when a breeze swept over the street from the west and carried with it a familiar smell. He sniffed at the air and his lips parted in a sneer. "It's them!"

He ran down West North Temple toward I-80. The closer he got to the interstate, the worse the smell became and before long he could hear the moans of hundreds, thousands of walkers, maybe more. Empty cars jammed the street below the overpass and were packed so tightly bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door on the onramp that he had to clamber over them to get to the top where he finally found what he was seeking.

Stalled vehicles crowded the I-80 all the way to the horizon in both directions. There were cars, trucks, semis, RVs, and even a few motorcycles. The traffic on both sides of the divider was heading west, out of Salt Lake. This wasn't an evacuation, this was a chaotic, unorganized, panic driven exodus and with tens of thousands of cars involved, all it took was a flat tire here, an overheated engine there, and a lot of people running out of gas to grind everything to a halt.

Now the dead swarmed like ants among the cars for as far as he could see. This was why he hadn't found them in town, they went where the food was and they were eating their way up and down the lanes. John readied his sword and snaked his way through the largely abandoned cars.

Some of them had walkers inside, drivers or passengers who had been bitten and succumbed to infection before getting out. Now they were trapped because they weren't smart enough to unbuckle a seatbelt or open a car door. John just kept on moving past those, they weren't going anywhere, they could wait.

Just ahead, three zombies knelt over the remains of a man that had been dragged out of his truck through a broken window. The poor man had been torn apart and each of them chewed mindlessly on his own piece. John had learned from his mistake with the guard and when he got to the nearest walker, he swung the sword parallel to the ground with a slicing motion that neatly cleft the top of the zombie's head and down it went as did his fellows in like manner.

"Yes!" John roared, sword held triumphantly over his head. "Who's next?! Huh?! WHO'S NEXT?!!" he shrieked and charged forth into the melee of death.

One walker after another fell as John mowed though them like grass. He doubted the samurai who first owned this sword could have ever foreseen it being put to this particular use but believed he would have approved nevertheless. The sound of metal slicing through bone and the spray of blood was exhilarating, even euphoric. John imagined each walker he cut down was one that killed his family.

At length, he came to a minivan that had tried to veer off the road and got hung up on a guard rail. He couldn't see through the tinted glass but he could hear scuffling noises coming from inside. When John saw that the sliding side door was slightly open, he decided he better not pass this one by like he had others. He pulled open the door and recoiled in horror.

A zombie held a woman in his arms, gnawing at the few strands of muscle and sinew that still held her head to her body. While her body lay lifeless in his clutches, her eyes flitted about and her teeth snapped at the air. John grabbed the man by the hair and dragged him out onto the dirt along with his victim. "Come on! Get up you sick son of a bitch! Get up! On your feet!" he yelled as the creature rose.

The second he was standing, John lashed out with his sword and decapitated him with one stroke. He kicked the head into a drainage ditch and shouted after it, "You're not getting off so easy! You can just stay down there and rot you bastard! There'll still be room for you in hell!"

John walked over to the woman who hung half in half out of the van. "Unbelievable…two of your own kind turning on you in one day…sucks doesn't it?" He rolled her the rest of the way out and finished her with the heel of his boot.

By now, the sun was almost gone and a few stars were becoming visible in the blackening sky. John leaned against the van, he needed a break for a minute. He wasn't physically tired but emotionally, he was worn down. Never before had he appreciated how much anger can burn a person out.

A last check of the van showed, to his relief, it was just those two. However, there was something that did get his attention. Clipped to the driver's side visor was a pair of Oakley sunglasses. "Whoa! Top of the line! These bad boys would probably cost me an entire paycheck." After a moment's deliberation, he slipped them into his pocket. "Why the hell not. It's not like anyone going to miss them now."

He was just about ready to press on when, out of the corner of his eye, he detected something moving from around the back of the van. John whirled, poised to strike, but stayed his hand when he found himself confronted with a small boy.

The child was about eight, maybe nine and dressed in a soccer jersey and shorts. Most of the flesh was gone from his left arm and he hobbled along, dragging his right foot behind him. He took a few more lurching steps toward John, stopped, and looked up at him.

John lowered his weapon. Fury, more intense than any he'd felt so far, kindled inside of him. He hated himself, even more than he hated the other dead. How many other children was he going to find like this one. How many young lives were cut short because of him? He thought that maybe none of this would have happened if he'd realized or understood what had happened to him in the morgue. Maybe if he'd killed himself then and there, Susie, Justine, Angie, lots of people would be alive right now. Maybe.

Briefly, he considered letting the boy go but damning him to wander on like this would be worse than what he'd done already. He put a hand on the lad's shoulder and faked his best smile. "It's going to be okay," he lied and brought up his sword. "I swear…it'll all be over before you know it."

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Martha wiped at her tears.

"I really thought that I'd come home in the morning like I promised," John said. "Justine would be there. Susie would be there. Angie wouldn't be far away. You know…you get so comfortable with the people you care about when you're with them day after day. You take them for granted. You assume they'll always be there. You think that…there will always be time. But time runs out. Mine did. Now all I do is wander and kill everything I come across."

"I…I'm sorry…" she stumbled over the words, fighting back the growing lump in her throat, "I'm…sorry about what happened to…your family…and you. I am so…"

"Yeah," he interrupted. "Yeah…me too." A line of reddish black blood began trickling out of his nose.

"Does it hurt?"

"No…at least not like…I don't feel pain, not like you do."

"What? I don't…"

"Have you ever heard someone say they wanted something so badly it hurts? That's what it like, the hunger. That's what hurts, the hunger, the wanting and I don't know why or how, but when it's really, really bad…"

"You bleed?"

"Humph…if 'blood' is what you want to call this vile crap that leaks out of me."

"Does it ever go away? The hunger?"

"Not entirely. It always there. I feel it all the time…just like the others. Make no mistake Martha, I _am_ one of them."

"I don't understand how you can….how you…"

"Can be what I am? Somewhere halfway between living and dead? I don't know. Maybe God just hates me."

Martha got up, crossed the room, and sat next to John. "I don't hate you."

"You should. I've…done…things. Horrible things that you couldn't possibly imagine. Things I can never be forgiven for. I'm…a monster!"

"You are not a…"

"Have you listened to a goddamn thing I've said?!"

"Yes. I have. I know what you've done. You've done awful things. But you've done good things too. You saved Kevin. He would have died without you. You saved me too."

"That doesn't mean anything to Angie, or Susie, or Justine, or any of the people who are dead because of me!"

"It means something to Kevin," Martha's voice was soft. "It means something to Michelle. And…it means something to me. I guess the question is, does it mean anything to you?" John turned his face away. "Well, does it?"

"You're making this hard. You should go."

"Do you want to be alone?"

"That's not it."

"Then what is it?"

He brushed his nose with the back of his hand. Blood flowed freely now. "Martha…please…for your sake, you really should go."

There was a shakiness in his voice that made a little of the fear she felt earlier creep back into her but she casually made her way to the door. "John?"

"Martha?"

"Are you going to leave?"

"Yes."

"Will you wait until tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Will you say good-bye to Michelle and Kevin?"

"Will it make you feel better?"

"It might make them not feel as bad about you leaving."

"Then I'll say good-bye."

"Thank you. And…thank you for saving my life."

"No, Martha. Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not hating me."


	14. Walking Away

1**Author's Notes:**

I hate that this chapter has taken so long to become reality. Ever since I got promoted to Captain, I have a lot more responsibility and much longer work days. Still, little by little, I was finally able to finish this latest addition.

I welcome everyone's comments and criticism. I take everything to heart and am open to ideas on how I can improve my work.

There are events that I originally planned to put in this chapter but chose to move to Chapter 15. Consequently, I had to change the title and I would like to thank my wife for coming up with "Walking Away". Also, I would like to thank my six-year old for helping me come up with dialogue for Kevin. I especially want to thank all those who have taken the time to read my work and give feedback. I appreciate all of you.

I have already started work on Chapter 15, The Fire. In the meantime, I look forward to what everyone has to say about:

Chapter 14

Walking Away

_BAM! BAM! BAM!_

A loud pounding noise jarred Martha awake. She sat up in bed and listened for it again but everything was quiet except for the steady, rhythmic tick of the wall clock and rain pattering on the window. After some time she began to think that maybe it had just been her imagination or a dream so she eased herself back under the covers.

Her head had hardly touched the pillow when the pounding resumed, fiercer than before, and a desperate, panicked voice cut like a razor through the darkness, "Martha! Martha! Help me! Oh god! PLEASE HELP ME!"

Martha swung herself out of bed, slipped on her shoes, grabbed the flashlight she kept on the nightstand, and ran downstairs to the front door. Taking no thought of who or what might be on the other side, she slid the deadbolt free and yanked it open.

There, leaning against the door jamb, was Michelle.

The flashlight shining up into her face wreathed her wide-open eyes in shadow, making them look wild and vacant. She was trembling and her breath came in short pants. Rainwater dripped from her hair and ran down her face in tiny rivulets over deep gashes on both cheeks to finally mingle with the blood that saturated the front of her sweatshirt.

Michelle staggered forward and, fell to her knees. Martha grabbed her arm and after a short struggle, managed to get her to her feet long enough to lead her to the base of the stairs where she sat her down.

_Lacerations, four on right cheek, three on left, _Martha thought, her mind a blaze of activity as she quickly evaluated Michelle's wounds. _Deep tissue trauma, zygomatic bone exposed. Pale skin,…blue lips…inadequate oxygen perfusion…possible hemorrhagic shock._

"It…it wasn't…it wasn't…supposed…to be like this,' Michelle stammered.

Martha moved her light to where Michelle clutched her right hand tightly against her chest. Blood streamed slowly and steadily from between the fingers of her left hand, down both arms, and to the floor where a few small, diluted puddles were beginning to form.

"Michelle…Michelle," Martha spoke softly, trying to project a feeling of calm, though her stomach was in knots. "Let me look at your hand."

"We were…going to be happy," Michelle said, seemingly oblivious to her friend. "Happy…we were…supposed to be…happy."

"Please," Martha tugged gently at her arm, "I want to help you. Let me..."

"A family," Michelle smiled dreamily. "We could have been a family. I…I…I would…I would have…taken care of him. He's so lonely. Something happened to him...I know. A woman knows these things. It was something…bad."

"What are you talking about?"

Michelle's smile dissolved into a look of teary-eyed confusion. She eased her hand away from her chest and held it out for Martha to see. Her small finger and ring finger were missing. All that remained were jagged stumps of bone and tattered tissue just below where the middle knuckles had been.

"Oh my god! Oh my…" Martha started but quickly managed to shake off her panic and pull together a facade of clinical calm. "It's okay. It's alright. It's not that bad. I…I've got to go get some bandaging but I'll be right back. Just stay here."

Martha vanished into the darkness but soon re-emerged with a large first aid kit and a gallon of water. She twisted the cap off the jug and repeatedly doused Michelle's hand until she was satisfied the wounds were clean then tore open a roll of gauze and started tightly wrapping her fingers. "This will help stop the bleeding. It's not life threatening. I promise. How did this…"

"I would have made him happy. I would have been good to him. I would have given him everything a man needs," Michelle whimpered as she rocked back and forth unsteadily. "I just wanted him to love me! Why wouldn't he love me? Why? Why? Why? WHY?" she wailed, becoming increasingly hysterical.

"MICHELLE! Listen to me! Who are you talking about? Who…?" The words seemed to catch in the air and hang like a mist as a thought crept into Martha's mind, a thought terrible, horrible, a thought that made her mouth go dry and her heart hammer so hard that it felt like it might break out of her chest. She closed her eyes tightly and steeled her nerve. She could be wrong.

She prayed she was wrong.

She _had _to be wrong.

" Did…did John do this?"

The question's effect was extraordinary. Michelle went stock still. Only her eyes moved, turning slowly in their sockets to stare directly at Martha but she didn't say anything.

"Did John do this?" she asked again, every syllable enunciated through clenched teeth but there was no answer and she feared no time to gently coax one out. She took hold of Michelle's shoulders and shook her violently. "WAS IT JOHN? DID HE DO THIS? DID HE BITE YOU?"

Michelle's chin quivered. She took a sharp, deep breath and held it for a moment before erupting into a fit of screaming. The unexpected outburst caused Martha to recoil and when she released her grip, Michelle fell back on her side, curling up as though she'd been kicked in the stomach.

"Is Kevin all right? Where is he? What's happened to him?" Martha pressed but Michelle didn't respond. She only kept crying. "Michelle…please…I…I…this is…GODAMMIT!"

Martha realized she wasn't going to get anything out of her friend and she couldn't stay where she was, taunted by the inexorable conclusion that presented itself. She had to get to Kevin and hope for the best so she grabbed her flashlight and ran into the storm outside.

Lightning flashes illuminated the night sky, casting twisted, menacing shadows all across the ground below. It was easy to imagine the dead lurching about in the darkness everywhere, stumbling down the sidewalk, shambling among the trees, even pouring out of the houses, but the macabre atmosphere was wasted on Martha. She was too busy running.

The rain had slowed to barely a trickle but the wind was still blowing in strong gusts and combined with the hot muggy air, it made Martha feel more like she were swimming. Still, she was in very good shape. She wasn't a natural runner and for most of her life had never given her personal fitness much consideration. But that was then and in the world she lived in now, it paid to be able to run very, very fast. So she had taken to doing laps along the inner perimeter of the wall almost every day. And now she ran as if she were in a race with all the grisly possibilities playing out in her mind and Kevin was the prize for whoever got there first.

Michelle's house sat in the far northeast corner of Eastlake. Flanked on two sides by the outer wall and heavily surrounded by old growth oaks and carefully placed willows, it was well concealed from general view. Were it not for the drive leading off the street and around the back to the garage, a passerby might easily not even realize it was there. But Martha had come to know this place intimately during her time caring for Kevin and even in the oppressive gloom, she had little difficulty finding her way.

Martha cleared the front steps in one leap but stopped short of the door. It was open and silently swayed back and forth with the rhythm of the wind. More cautious now, she crept forward, step-by-step until she stood inside.

She moved her flashlight around, taking in her surroundings. Nothing seemed out of place, nothing _seemed _wrong. The house was dark and it was quiet but otherwise, as best she could tell, everything looked just as it did when she was last there. "Kevin!" she called out, hoping for some response. None came.

Warily, she ascended the stairs. Halfway up, she called to him again. She closed her eyes and strained to hear something, anything, but there was only the rumble of distant thunder from the retreating storm and the pounding of her heart in her ears which grew louder and more fierce the closer she got to the second floor landing. And when she got to the top step, there he was.

Kevin lay on his back, blood all over him and around him. His torso was torn open from the neck down. Pieces of splintered rib and shredded intestines were strewn about the floor. His limbs trembled slightly and his eyes shook back and forth. The muscles in his jaw jerked spasmodically almost as if he were trying to speak but these movements were only the vestiges of what, in life, had been exquisite agony. But that life was gone. He was dead, gutted like an animal and left to rot.

Martha swayed for a moment and then fell to her knees next to the little boy. She put her hands on his face and leaned down to touch her forehead to his. "Kevin…,"she whimpered, "…I'm…I'm sorry…I'm sorry. I thought…I…oh god…no…no…no…no no no no no…" Harder and harder, she cried until at last she threw her head back, screaming like someone who had been tortured beyond reason.

Gradually, her racking sobs gave way to gut-wrenching dry heaves and ultimately to silence. She took Kevin's hand in her own and held it against her face. He had finally gone still and his fingers were cold and rigid. Martha kept her eyes closed. She didn't want to look at him again, not like this, and she didn't need to. For all the horrible things she'd seen, this was the one thing that she had no hope of forgetting.

She struggled to form a coherent thought against the sickness and grief coursing through her shaking frame. _Al, I have to get Al and Dale. I have to take care of Michelle…I have to…oh god…she's been bitten…she…she's going to die! She's going to die and it's because of me! I knew…I knew what John was and I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I could have done something! I…I trusted him…I..._

Suddenly, she felt a drop hit the back of her neck. Another quickly followed, and another, and still another until a stream ran across her shoulder and down her chest. It was warm. Without looking, she knew what it was and she knew who was behind her.

"Oh god," she breathed.

"Ma…Maaaa…Maaarrrrthaaa." The reply was slurred and sounded more like a growl than a voice but was still recognizable.

Every muscle in Martha's body tensed and her mind raced through options, none of which looked very good. There was her flashlight. It was long, heavy, all metal, and under other circumstances would have been quite a formidable weapon. But she'd seen John in action and knew the odds in an up-close fight were decidedly against her. She could run but it was a feeble hope at best. She'd probably never make it as far as the door. Worst of all, nobody but Michelle knew she was here and she was catatonic.

No help was coming.

She was alone.

She turned her face upward to look into those familiar yellow eyes. In the ambient light, they looked strangely darker and they were fixed directly on her. Blood drenched John's clothes, his face and his hair. It dripped from his mouth and the knife in his hand. Another drop fell from the tip and landed on Martha's cheek.

"John…"

His lips parted and curled into a snarl.

"John…please,…please…"

He let out a horrific screech and threw himself down on top of her, sending her sprawling back across Kevin's body. A shower of white sparks and swirls filled her vision as she crashed into the floor. She fought to scream, to just get a breath but John had landed hard on her, forcing all the air out of her lungs. The flashlight had rolled several feet away but remained on and provided just enough light for her to see gleaming strands of bloody drool dangling from John's approaching mouth.

"No," she gasped. "No…don't…please…"

"Ssssoooo…hungry…"

An explosion of pain tore through her head as John sank his teeth into her cheek and fiercely ripped away one side of her face with a jerk of his neck. Frantically, he stuffed the flesh into his mouth with both hands.

Martha sputtered against the blood running down her throat. It sprayed out above her and landed back in her eyes, burning. She was choking on it and with one last tremendous effort, she shoved John off, sat bolt upright and…

…she was in her bed.

She gulped at the air in panic as she looked about. There was no Kevin, no John. This wasn't Michelle's house. It was hers. She was in her own room, in her own bed, again. It had been a dream. Just another dream.

It had been like this all night. Every time she closed her eyes to sleep, thoughts of the things John had told her mingled with her tired imagination to throw her onto a nightmare treadmill of grisly scenes playing out over and over. And the dreams always ended the same way, with Michelle and Kevin dead.

Martha brushed a few sweat soaked tendrils of hair away from her face. She fell back into her pillow and rubbed her eyes as if that would blot out the hellish images still drifting through her head. The clock by her bed said 7:17. She thought she could probably get by for another hour before she would really need to get up and she was _so _exhausted. But tired as she was, she couldn't face what she knew would be waiting on the other side of sleep or what, for her, had passed for sleep.

Rising from bed, she crossed silently to the windows. Most of the storm clouds were gone. The horizon was overspread by the golden glow of sunrise and rays of light shone through the trees, glistening off last night's rain that still clung to the leaves and branches. From her vantage point, it didn't look like anyone was out and about yet but they soon would be. The only sound was the far off chirping of some unseen birds. The view eased her mind and she could feel some of her anxiety slipping away. "At least there's something beautiful left in the world," she muttered.

Her meditations were interrupted by an abrupt knock downstairs. Martha backed away from the window and into the near corner. For a moment, her heart caught in her throat and she clutched a hand to her chest.

"Martha? Martha? Are you home?" It was Michelle's calm, familiar voice.

"Just a second!" she called back and hastened to get dressed. Within a few minutes, she was downstairs, eager to see for herself that Michelle was okay. When Martha opened the door, the sight of her friend framed in the light of day, alive and unhurt, finally abated her fear that this might be another nightmare.

"Oh...Michelle...hey...good morning. Is everything all right, I mean...are you all right? Is Kevin all right?"

"Yeah...yeah...we're both fine. Um...are _you _okay?"

"Huh? Oh...I...yes...yes, I just...I just had a rough night," Martha tried to explain, realizing how strange she probably sounded. "Please, come inside, come inside."

"No, thanks. Kevin is still asleep and I don't want to leave him alone too long. I just...I wanted to ask you if John is okay."

"What?"

"You said you'd look in on him and...yesterday he seemed so sick. You did see him, didn't you?"

"Yes. Yes I did."

"And..."

"And he's fine. He just has...really high blood pressure. In some people it can cause severe nose bleeds." It was the first, best lie that came to mind and its effect was nothing short of miraculous.

"Really? Oh my gosh!" Michelle gushed. "I was so scared...I..." she hesitated and wiped away a few nervous tears, "I was...scared he might be really sick, that he might..."

"Well, you can relax," Martha said, trying to cut short the apprehension that fairly emanated from Michelle. "He's been through a lot but, I think...I think..."

"Uh-huh?"

"I think his health isn't anything that you need to be worried about." It was close enough to the truth.

"He's going to be all right. Now he has a home here with us and he has someone to take care of him." A slight smile crept across Michelle's lips. "You and I both know that what every man really needs is a woman take care of him, and I'll do whatever he needs me to do."

"You want to know what you need to do?" Martha said sternly. "I'll tell you what you need to do. You need to forget about John. Forget he ever came here. Forget you ever saw him. He isn't anything like what you think he is. He's not even human! He's one of those _things_. He's dead! I don't know how, but he's a walker that can think and talk, and he is _dangerous! _He's killed no telling how many people. The man killed his own sister! He's already told me he isn't staying, and for your sake, for your son's sake, let him go quietly. The sooner he's away from here, the safer we'll all be!"

At least, that was what Martha said in her mind. It's what she felt she should say. The words, however, got routed through her aching heart on the way to her mouth and came from her lips as, "I know you will."

"I guess I'd better get back. I don't want Kevin to wake up and me not be there." Michelle started to go but turned back to ask, "Are you sure you're okay? You seem awfully spaced out."

"I'm just tired." She put on what she hoped was a convincing smile. "Don't worry. I'll try taking a nap this afternoon. Don't worry about me. You get on back home."

"Okay. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, see you later."

Martha ducked inside, closing the door after her, and waited until she was certain Michelle was well out of ear shot before quietly adding, "Much later."

May 4, 1997 6:38 P.M.

Martha had spent the last hour stretched out on a lawn chair in front of her house watching clouds come together and drift apart again, much the same as her weary thoughts. The air was warm and pleasant. A soft breeze blew across her face, carrying the lulling sound of early crickets chirping.

On an evening like this, she could pretend that she and the others weren't really prisoners in this place. It was easy when everything around her seemed so perfect. She even went so far as to allow herself the indulgence of forgetting, for a little while, the things the surrounding wall was keeping out.

"You know..." The sound of a voice shattering the stillness startled her. She scrambled out of her chair and onto her feet to find John standing behind her. "...from my house in Salt Lake you could see the entire valley, all of it, north to south, east to west. I could see the mountains and a little beyond. When the sun would set, it made the mountains and the sky look like they were on fire. Susie and I would sit on the swing in our front yard and watch it together. Susie...Susie loved the sunset."

Martha stood where she was, waiting for him to say something else but the uneasy silence dragged on and on until she finally said, "I thought I might not get the chance to see you again."

"That's very nice of you to say, but...I think what you mean is, why are you still here?"

She was loathe to admit it but that was what she was trying to say, albeit less bluntly. Though now, social nicety hardly seemed worth the effort. "Well?' she asked.

"Well, what?"

"Why _are _you still here?"

"There was...something I wanted to do before I left."

"What?"

He sighed thoughtfully before answering. "Just...something for Kevin."

Martha wasn't sure what he meant, but he sounded sad, even pained, so she made a move to change the subject. "Michelle came to see me this morning."

"Really?"

"She asked me yesterday to check on you. She wanted to know if you were all right."

"And," he glared over his spectacles at her, "what did you say?"

"I just made something up. I said you'd be fine. She seemed to believe me but she's still worried about you."

John turned abruptly and, for a moment, she thought he was going to simply walk away but he turned back and squared himself on her. "She would do better to save her worry for her son."

"I was beginning to think you'd just taken off."

"Oh, I thought about it. I thought it might be easier. But...the more I thought, the more I realized it would just be easier for me. No, I told you I would say good-bye, and I will."

"What are you going to tell her? She's going to want to know why you're not staying."

"I don't know. It doesn't really matter what I tell her, does it? It's all going to end the same."

He moved toward her but stopped when she backed away a step. The movement had been subtle, reflexive. She hadn't meant to do it but it was done and now there was no taking it back, no pretending it hadn't happened.

For awhile, neither said anything. Martha kept her eyes turned away. She was nervous and ashamed of being nervous. She knew John would never ever admit it, but she could tell he was hurt. She had hurt him, and she didn't know what to do, so she didn't do anything except stand there.

John reached into his coat and from an inner pocket, removed a small book. "This," he held up the volume, "belonged to my grandmother. When Angie and I were kids, she'd come over anytime we were sick, and she'd read to us from this. When Grandma Smith died, she left it to both of us. We each kept it for a year at a time. We'd..." he closed his eyes for a second or two, trying to compose himself and his voice faltered a bit as he continued, "we'd always exchange it at Christmas. It was our tradition."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want you to understand why I'm giving it to you."

"What? But...why? I..."

"Listen to me. I can't go on forever. Someday, somehow, I am going to die. I don't know where, I don't know when, but I will die. And when it happens, I'll be alone. I don't want this book rotting away in some hole somewhere with me. I've lost everything else, but I don't have to lose this. This is a piece of my family that can go on, that can last. It'll be a lot safer here with you than it will ever be with me."

"I...can't. This is..."

"It's good. You'll enjoy it."

"But..."

"I know you're afraid. You're very afraid. You're afraid of me, you're afraid to be near me and it's all right. You should be. But...please," he held the book out to her imploringly, "take it. Just take it, and I'll go."

Martha said nothing; she didn't have to. The pain on John's face was evident, and she began to realize how much she had hurt him. She didn't know what to do, so instead of further protest, she took the book from him with as much grace as she could summon.

She looked at it carefully. It was old. Though the brown leather binding was somewhat worn and stiff, it wasn't brittle. The gilt lettering on the spine was faded but still readable, _A Collection of Short Stories by The Reader's Muse_. Martha thumbed through the first few pages. They were yellowed and thick, their texture like fine sandpaper. Just inside the cover, on the very first page was written: _To John and Angela, My Precious Little Ones, I'll Always Love You, Grandma S._

Guilt began to settle on Martha as she read the inscription. She thought of all the things she had endured the past few years and how tiny they now seemed put up against all this man in front of her had lost and what he suffered day after day after day. More than that, he was the only reason she and Kevin were still alive. Even when he had the chance to hurt her, he didn't, despite the pain he was in and that was his choice. Now he was about to go quietly into exile and all he asked of her was that she keep safe this vestige of his life and family.

She felt selfish. She had treated him like vermin, and he didn't deserve it; he didn't deserve any of it. She felt like the monster she had thought he was.

"I have to go," John murmured.

"Don't!" She strode to him until only a few inches separated them. "I mean...wait. I'm sorry...just now...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it. What I..."

"It's all right."

"No! It's not all right! It's not all right. It's not. I...it's just that...I'm..."

"Afraid." John eased forward a little bit. He removed his glasses and lifted her chin to bring her teary eyes to his. "And yes, it is all right," he said reassuringly.

A bundle of clouds drifted past overhead, blotting out the late afternoon sun and in the softer light, John didn't seem so pale or the lines in his face so deep. There was a gentleness in his eyes that Martha hadn't seen before, and a sadness. They weren't the same eyes she saw yesterday, and they most definitely weren't the same eyes from her dream. He really wasn't the man she had supposed. She placed a hand on his chest, right over his heart. Through his shirt she could feel his flesh was cold and still.

John place his hand over hers. "I will miss you, Martha."

"I...I wish...there was some way I could help you."

"You can."

"How?"

"Don't let on to Michelle about me...about what I am."

"I promise I won't."

He nodded his thanks, patted her hand, and allowed himself a small smile. "That'll do, Martha. That'll do."

She looked down at the book and back to John's face again. "I'll take good care of it."

"I know you will. I trust you."

Without warning, she hugged him tightly around his neck, kissed his cheek and, just as quickly, pulled away and dashed past him to retreat into her home. But as she crossed the threshold, a curiously strong feeling of loss stole over her. She hadn't expected this to be so hard, for him to be so...human. She looked back but...

...he was gone.

Martha clutched the book to her chest and, for awhile, stared at the empty space where he had been standing.

"Good-bye, John."

_This isn't going to end well_. _It can't._ _This is insane, _John thought as he watched Michelle, himself unseen, concealed by the huge trellis that bordered her front porch on both sides.

For the past half-hour she had been sitting quietly in the bay window of her living room, engrossed in a book. She bore very little resemblance to the sad, harrowed woman he'd come to know. Her hair was clean, brushed, and pulled back into a ponytail tied together with a pink ribbon. The desperation was gone from her eyes. They were clear and calm. It was only now, seeing her this way, that he realized how beautiful she was.

_I don't have to do this. I shouldn't do this. I should just get out of here. I could be over the wall and gone..._

"Mom!" Kevin appeared in the window next to Michelle.

"What is it honey?" She put down her book and lifted him up onto her knee.

"You said John was coming today."

"Kevin, I said he would come over if he was feeling better than yesterday."

"But if he doesn't come, I can't give him his present. Can we take it to him?"

"Honey," her voice was suddenly very somber, "we can't do that. It won't be long before it's going to be dark and we can't ever, ever be away from home when it's dark...and you know why."

"Because of the monsters?"

"Yes, honey...the monsters."

_The monsters_, John mused.

_Like me. _

Looking at them reminded him of the family he used to have, of the night he left them, just like he was leaving now. Susie and Justine were scared too. Scared of the monsters.

_ I should never have left them. I didn't have to leave. _

_But this time, I do. _

_I promised Justine I'd come home, and I didn't...until it was too late._

_I didn't keep my promise._

_ But...I suppose I can keep this one._

John rapped his knuckles on the door.

"It's John! He's here! I'll get it! I'll get it!" came an excited little voice from inside the house. Moments later, the door flung open and there stood a pajama clad Kevin. "Mom! He's here! John's here! I knew he'd come!" The boy wrapped himself around John's legs and held on for dear life. "I knew you'd come!"

Soon, Michelle appeared and stood by for a while, surveying the scene with a smiling satisfaction before, with some difficulty, peeling her son off of John. "Look mom!" 'She continued, "He's here! He made it!"

"I see he did. You know what that means."

"What?"

"You can show him what you made."

"Yeah! Come on! Let's go! I have something to show you!" Kevin grabbed him by the coat and pulled him through the foyer.

"I need to talk to you," John said to Michelle.

"Sure, we can talk. Would you take a look at what Kevin's made for you first? If he doesn't show you soon, he's going to explode." She laid a hand on John's arm and let it linger there. "I'll wait for you downstairs in the living room. We can talk about anything you want."

Behind his glasses, John's eyes moved several times from Michelle's hand to her face and back again. It was a small gesture but it was more than enough to make him feel uneasy.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mom. Come on, let's go!" Kevin fussed. "There's something you've gotta see! It's gonna be awesome!" With renewed vigor, he tugged frantically at John, leading him up the stairs, down the hall and through the door of his room.

Pens, pencils, markers, and crayons were scattered everywhere. Kevin ran to the desk against the far wall and shuffled through a chaotic stack of papers, pushing sheets aside, tossing others to the floor until he finally found the one he wanted. "Look! Look! I drew this just for you! I'm a good artist!"

John took the paper from the anxious boy. On one side, a small crayon stick figure stood next to an unnaturally tall one that was brandishing what looked like a sword. To their right was a mishmash of red-eyed amorphous creatures with gaping mouths full of sharp teeth.

"That's me, that's you, and those are the monsters," Kevin explained as he pointed to each drawing in turn.

"What are they doing?"

"They're running away because they're scared of you."

"Have you ever actually seen a zombie?"

Immediately, the boy's countenance changed from excited to dispirited. His smile vanished, his face clouded over and his eyes took on the haunting look of someone who had endured pain far beyond their years.

"My mom doesn't like that word," Kevin mumbled. "Sometimes I hear the grownups say it. I said it once, and my mom got mad...real mad." He drew a deep, tired sounding breath. "She told me they're why my dad's gone."

"I...," John started to say he was sorry but it didn't feel right. It seemed so trite and contrived. He'd heard those words so many times and said them so many times that they had almost all the meaning beaten out of them. Instead, he simply told him, "They're...why my wife and daughter are gone."

They sat quietly next to each other and watched the shadows in the room grow longer as the light of day waned. For a long time, neither spoke. A wide gulf of time and distance and circumstance separated the two, but there existed a solidarity between them and they understood that without having to say it. Both had suffered losses that should never have happened and each, in their own way, had done the only thing they could. They had learned to live with it.

"John?"

"Kevin?"

"Where did they come from...the monsters?"

The question caught John off-guard. He'd been so preoccupied with _what _was happening, he'd never really thought about _how_ it was happening until now. "I don't know," he admitted. " I don't think anyone knows."

"Are there a lot of them?"

"Oh yes...there are a lot of them."

"How many?"

"I don't know."

"How many have you killed?"

"Somewhere along the way, I managed to lose count. It doesn't really matter. I've killed every single one I've ever seen."

"Wow," Kevin said with awe. "When I grow up, I want to be like you."

"If that's the case...these might help you along the way." From his pocket, John produced a pair of small sunglasses. "I think these should be just about your size," he said as he slid them onto Kevin's face.

"OH MY GOSH! These are so cool!" Kevin ran over to the dresser mirror to admire his new treasure. "Where did you get these?"

"Well...," John grinned, "I have ways."

Kevin hugged John as hard as he could. "Thank you! They're perfect! "They're the best present ever!"

"You're welcome." John patted his head and, inwardly he was grateful the boy seemed content with his answer. He didn't want to try to explain how he spent last night and most of today walking to Papillion to find the glasses and bring them back here.

"I'll keep my glasses on all the time, the same way you do."

"If it makes you happy. Anyway, it's time you got into bed."

"Do I have to? Can't I stay up a little bit longer?"

"Yes, you have to, and no, you can't. It's almost dark and you still need more rest."

"But I'm better now," Kevin continued to protest.

"You're not better, you're just _feeling_ better. It'll be a while before you're completely well."

"Okay," Kevin said resignedly and crawled into his waiting bed. "Can we play cards again tomorrow, or maybe play outside?"

John's heart couldn't sink any lower. He'd grown accustomed to shame and guilt but this was the first time he could remember feeling cowardly. He knew this was for the best and he was tempted to tell Kevin he was leaving and why, to try to make him understand that no one would be safe until he was gone. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. "There'll be plenty of time to worry about tomorrow tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Sleep tight," John whispered as he pulled the covers over Kevin before gently folding the picture, putting it in his pocket, and slipping quietly out of the room.

"You'll see," Kevin called to him. "When I'm big, I'm gonna kill monsters just like you."

"When you're a grown man, I know you'll kill a lot of monsters." John closed the door behind him.

_Just like me._


End file.
